The Path of Achilles
by Bowdown
Summary: Tyler Winters must battle guilt and overcome perilous martial arts trials in order to redeem himself for his actions as a gang member.
1. The Trial

_I'm back on watching Kenichi for a third time, and you know what that means. New fanfiction time!_

 _So here you go, a brand new fanfiction for Kenichi the mightiest disciple, born from my own brain. Here you go!_

 _I do not own the rights to Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple._

 **Chapter 1**

 **The Trial**

As Tyler Winters heard the final bell ring to dismiss him from school, he was almost the first person out the door, feeling the wind blowing his shoulder length blonde hair around and forced him to brush it behind his ear. His hair was a lot different from a lot of other males hair, as it was messy, but didn't stick up in any places, such as the hair of the school's Prince Tanimoto. No Tyler's hair was long and blonde and fairly straight, if not a bit grungy looking. And as was the case of him walking out the doors on a windy day like this, it almost always got in his face, but a shake of the head, typically fixed that right up.

He slipped one arm out of the strap of his book bag as he left the school campus and was mostly free from the eyes of his fellow peers. Now he was free to move onto what he had been looking forward to all day long.

A chance to shed his school uniform and the innocence of being a school boy.

He slipped into a small alley where nobody hardly went and quickly shed his school uniform and changed into a pair of baggy jeans, black converse, and a red hoodie. He threw up the hood over his hair and rolled up the sleeves, leaving it unzipped a bit. He left the jacket unzipped a bit to show some of his chest and cool him off a bit. He picked his bag back up from the dirt after stuffing his clothes inside and left the campus completely.

A slow walk had Tyler quickly arriving at his first destination, the hideout of his boss, Tsuji. This had Tyler wondering what sort of mood the muscular male was in, because on this particular day, Tyler would be achieving a goal that Tsuji himself had wanted for quite some time. Tyler quickly reached the hideout, which wasn't much and not much time was spent in it. It mostly served as Tsuji's home and a place for him and the gang to train. It was just a warehouse.

Tyler approached the front gate and found it opening as soon as he reached it. The faces of the two other gang members were that of fondness toward Tyler.

"Achilles, you ready?" One of them said with a grin.

The other door man patted him on the back. "We're in the presence of the soon to be Ninth fist of Ragnarok, people!" He announced to the other lesser gang members who had gathered around a television.

Tyler grinned as they clapped and gave a graceful bow before he turned to the door men. "Where's Tsuji?"

The door man pointed toward a mountain of crates with a very silent tone and sort of a fearful expression. "He's been training harder than usual today."

"Mmm, I bet." He nodded as he patted the man on the shoulder and began walking toward Tsuji's area. "I'll go speak to him."

The blonde American made it past the other men, who glanced back at him with grave looks as if he were walking death row. As he saw the first punching bag he flipped his hood off and fixed his messy hair. Then he heard the frantic grunts and patting of Tsuji's heavy back which weighed a whopping two-hundred pounds, which only he or Tyler used.

His mop headed boss was only a few inches taller than Tyler, but he was much more muscular than him. As he watched Tsuji punch away at the bag, he realized just how much more aggressive his boss was than himself. Though he didn't exactly see that as a bad thing.

"Careful." Ty grinned as he pulled up a chair and leaned back in it. Tsuji halted and looked back, still panting from his work out. "The bag might hit back."

"Shut the hell up." He grunted, giving the bag another kick. "I can't believe they chose you to be the Ninth fist. First Valkyrie and now you."

"Yeah it's a tragedy ain't it?" He grinned. Tsuji grunted and continued his frustrated practice. "I guess you're just gonna have to keep up." He grinned, getting only a shake of the head from Tsuji. He sighed and shook his head. "You're at least gonna watch, right?"

"Maybe." He shook his head with a grunt.

"Well if I don't see you there." He grinned before standing up from his chair and backing away. "Make sure I never see you again." He saluted before leaving the warehouse.

"Say goodbye to the champ of Tsuji's gang!" The doormen chanted after opening the doors for him. "Achilles!"

The men chanted his name over and over as the blonde rolled his sleeved back up and threw his hood on, before he was well on his way to the Eight fist's hideout to begin his trial.

He plucked in his ear phones as he walked all lonely and silent. At least he could jam on his way there, so he immediately turned on the first song on his play list, which was actually quite perfect for the mood he was in.

Paint it Black, by the Rolling Stones.

Yes, even though he was surrounded by Japanese pop and hip hop, he had always considered himself an american hippie. He found himself completely lost in his music up until he finally reached the hideout and approached the two men at the door.

They stepped into his way with stern frowns at the approaching man. Tyler pulled out his ear phones and put them away before waving at them. "Achilles. Here for my trial."

"You're late, you know." One of them grunted, stepping out of his way.

"Fashionably late!" He grinned as he waved over his shoulder and entered the large crowd of Ragnarok members.

He looked up at the level above the fight circle and saw the shadowy eight fists observing them. One man was currently in the center, also taking a trial for the eight fists. The male was a good fighter and actually finished off his attackers rather quickly, holding his arms up like a champ.

"Anybody else?" He called out, daringly.

Tyler grinned and pulled his hood down as he passed through the crowd of men. "Challenge accepted!" He called out, removing his jacket and throwing it to the dirt.

"Achilles!" The first fist called out. "Glad you can finally join us, late."

Tyler took a graceful bow before turning to his opponent and holding out his arm. The man was already in a rather standard stance. Tyler waved the man towards himself, shaking his head. "Come on, poser."

"Fuck off!" The man called out, a little too confident, as Tyler was.

He charged at him, throwing a wide hook first, which was his first mistake. Tyler easily dodged it and landed a swift jab to his jaw, then stepped back as another hook came his way. Achilles counter attacked by landing a quick kick to his side, then another one to his knee. The man grunted and charged again, this time leading with a jab, but Tyler simply ducked underneath it, with a quick punch to his solar plexus, followed by a knee to his stomach upon standing.

His opponent stumbled back after the knee, but Tyler finished him off by tripping him onto his back and kicking him in the side of his jaw once he was down. Achilles circled around, after his quick victory and eyeballed all the other members of Ragnarok who looked ready to test him.

"I came here for a fight." Achilles grinned to his challengers in a daring fashion. "So why are all my opponents holding back?" He held out his arms.

This taunt served its purpose as at least six men surrounded him, but who knew how many from the crowd were spectators and how many were challengers, because Tyler honestly couldn't tell. The first person that was in front of him, Tyler stuck his foot straight out and kicked him in the mouth, then turned to his right and leaned to the right away from the man's punch while landing a swift counter jab to his jaw. He crossed with a hard Karate punch to the man's sternum.

Tyler was stopped as two men from behind grabbed him under his arms and held him there. However, Tyler let them hold him as Tyler kicked any opponent who was dumb enough to fall for it, which ended up being three, each of which got a quick kick to the face. Finally Tyler squeezed the arms of the men who were holding him and stomped on the foot of the one on the left, easing the grip from that same arm. Tyler slipped his left arm out and elbowed him in the face. Then he pulled his right arm with a hard jerk and pulled the other man in front of him, using him as a human shield for a kick that was coming his way.

Achilles snaked his arm out of the hold and jabbed him between the eyes before stomping his knee and tripping up several more attackers. Then he turned to the left and stuck his foot out sideways into someone's face, planted that foot, and did the same kick to an opponent to the right. He felt a heavy punch land on his back, but that opponent got an equally heavy back elbow to the face. A kick landed on Tyler's stomach, causing some wind to be knocked out, but not before Tyler could catch the foot and trip him up. He used the downed attacker's body as a foot stool as he kicked off his chest and jumped at another attacker with a flying punch right into a punch that landed on Tyler's chest.

He shrugged off the hit and took a step back, dodging a wild kick. Then Tyler jumped straight up, letting the opponent block the obvious attack, but once he landed he spun around an swung his foot up high, landing a spinning back kick to the man's face. Tyler took a step back and observed the downed opponents, only to realize that he had only been fighting the same six guys that whole time. Which meant the power in his attacks weren't all that great, but at least they were down.

Achilles faced the fists with no more apparent challengers in the crowd. He took a step forward and felt his ankle grabbed, but finished the man off with a kick to the face without even looking.

Slowclaps could be heard from one of the eight fists, though Tyler couldn't tell which one. He simply looked up after retrieving his jacket and throwing it over his shoulder.

"Well done Achilles." Odin nodded as the blonde folded his arms and looked up at them. "You would easily make a good ninth fist."

"Sorry." He shrugged with a grin. "But I'm not interested in being the ninth fist."

"Oh?" Replied the first fist. "Isn't that the reason you came here today?"

Ty grinned and shook before. "As I said before, all I want is to fight." He waved it off. "I have no interest in having anybody look up to me."

"Oh, but they already do, Achilles." Another voice butted in, the very noticeable and mischievous voice of Loki. "Your name is starting to carry weight within Ragnarok and word is Tsuji's gang feels invincible with you."

Tyler grinned and folded his arms. "Well doesn't that mean I should stay by their side then?" He said, looking up at the fists.

"Aren't you the one who apparently doesn't like fighting for other people?" Loki finally said.

Oh the forth fist was good.

Well played indeed.

It was very true that Tyler did not enjoy being a thug, no matter how his reputations was, in the end he was still Tsuji's lackey. He had to follow orders or be branded an enemy.

Tyler let out a sigh of defeat and nodded. "Well played, dickhead." He smirked then shrugged.

"Then do you accept, Achilles?" Odin said with an patient stare.

Tyler looked around at the other gang members who were all staring at him still, the pressure felt quite strong. Finally Tyler shrugged his shoulders. "Why the hell not?"

"Excellent." The first fist said, tossing down a pair of black gloves which Tyler caught with one hand and looked at the shiny roman numeral on the backs.

Tyler slipped them on and studied them admiringly. It actually felt quite nice to achieve such a ranking. With a wide smirk Tyler nodded up at the fists before turning around and pumping his right fist into the air, causing the gang members to cheer loudly.

A chant started, similar to the one at Tsuji's hideout, which seemed to have become the signature chant for the new ninth fist. "Achilles! Achilles! Achilles!"

"Alright!" Odin's voice filled the room and shut the swarm of thugs up. "That's enough." The men silenced and looked respectively up at the first fist. "Achilles is henceforth the ninth fist of Ragnarok. You are all expected to give him the utmost respect." He announced, hearing no sounds from down below, other than Tyler's obvious snickering and almost laughing at those words. Odin's fist finally waved. "You are all dismissed."

Tyler folded his arms with a smirk as the entire crowd of lackeys left, leaving nothing but silence in the room as Tyler climbed the stairs to approach the other eight fists.

"So." He spoke up as he approached them. "What now? I expect there's more to being a fist, other than giving orders?"

"Hmm." Odin grinned as he adjusted his glasses. He found is a bit humorous that Tyler cared so little for showing the eight fists any stiff respect. It was actually quite refreshing. "Of course there is. We're the best fighters, because we deal with the most skilled fighters. People normal lackeys can't handle."

"Oh, sweet." Tyler pumped his fist as he reached the top of the stairs. "I'm down. When do I start?"

"You'll wait." Spoke up a deep, and irritated voice. It came from the cloaked sixth fist, Hermit who looked away. "There's only really one issue we're dealing with right now, and they're mine."

"They?" Achilles raised a brow. "As in plural?"

"That's right." Hermit grunted before Odin butted in. "And don't get in my way. Don't forget we all know your weakness, Achilles."

Tyler waved it off and shook his head. "Whatever, man."

"I'm off!" Odin said as he stood up, followed by several of the other fists.

Tyler watched as they all left, one by one, leaving only Loki and the eight fist Valkyrie in their seats. However, Loki was quick to greet the new ninth fist. "Don't worry about him." He waved it off.

Tyler glanced with a smirk. "I'll keep that in mind."

"He's really fired up about our newest enemy." Loki explained. "They're called the Shimpaku alliance and they've been quite a pain in the ass to deal with lately. The main gang is nothing special, but there's one member who we're really interested in." Loki then turned away with a wide grin. "His name is Kenichi Shirahama and apparently he's quite a great fighter." Loki took a step toward the stairs before looking over his shoulder. "It would be quite a good fight, you know."

The fourth fist chuckled deviously before leaving the hideout. Tyler stopped as Valkyrie approached him and he let her go first down the stairs. "Shit, it's like I'm the new guy in a cell block or something."

"You'll get used to it kid." Valkrie said as they both trotted down the steps. "More importantly watch out for Loki. You didn't even notice him baiting you back there. Trying to get you to fight Shirahama despite Hermit's warning."

"Eh, I don't know." Tyler shrugged as they neared the exit. "I think it might have worked.

"Is that so?" She grinned, adjusting her cap as she stopped in her tracks. "Then in that case maybe you could help me with something." She looked out the door and all around then finally leaned closely in toward Tyler. "I'm planning to attack a friend of Shirahama's, but the kid will most definitely get in the way. So what do you say you deal with the kid for me so I can get that bimbo."

"Bimbo?" Tyler grinned and nodded. "Well now I kinda wanna fight her too."

"Shut the hell up, you perv." She shook her head. "You in or what?"

"Hell yeah." Tyler grinned widely. "Orders or not, I'm not falling for some alpha male bullshit. I'm fighting."

"Atta boy." She grinned and turned away, flicking him a small piece of paper with her phone number on it. "Text me your number and I'll let you know when it's on."

Tyler programmed it into his phone and leaned against the wall as the eighth fist walked away. Then with a wide grin he cupped his hand and called after her. "Hey does this mean I just got the eight fist's number?" He chuckled.

"Ugh, it's not like that you dumbass!" She turned and shouted back at him.

"I'm telling everyone!" Tyler called back daringly.

Valkrie turned around and stomped off, he couldn't tell if she was red in the face or not. "You better not." She grunted.

A little voice in the back of Tyler's head spoke to him as he stuffed his phone into his pocket. It told him that if he wasn't careful he'd end up pissing off the eight fists. Then another voice spoke to him and told him all that was nonsense and he was on his way back home for the night.

Training?

Nah.

Maybe a bag session or two. Today was a day worth celebration.

He couldn't wait till his father fell asleep for the night.

* * *

 _ **Alright. Now I know a new story and a new character can be a big change and kinda scary. It may be too early to ask for any input, but that's what I'm doing.**_

 _ **So from what you've just read I want you readers to tell me what you think of Mister Winters as Achilles!**_

 _ **Also I've not yet figured out who I want as the romantic interest for the story, but I'm definitely thinking I'd like to have someone who went well with Tyler's personality. So drop any candidates of your own in the reviews. Or you could vote for my candidates which are:**_

 ** _Kisara_**

 ** _Renka_**

 ** _Shigure_**

 ** _I know I've done a Shigure romance before, but she's my favorite so I can't say no. Anyway, drop your ideas in the reviews for me and I whoever gets the most votes will be the winner._**


	2. Old Allies Punished

**Chapter 2**

 **Old Allies Punished**

As Tyler woke up for a lovely Saturday he was pleasantly surprised to find out that he woke up completely refreshed, considering he stayed up quite a while the previous night as a sort of personal celebration for achieving ninth fist status. Although once he woke, he immediately knew what was to blame for his surprisingly well rested condition.

See he didn't exactly fall asleep that night.

Rather, he passed out on his couch.

The culprit?

The joint of pot, who's smoke was now floating around in him at that moment, still affecting his brain in a rather pleasant way.

Dammit, he always got so sleepy when he smoked.

Then again it was quite a large amount.

Tyler sat up on his couch and rubbed his eyes, blinking a bit slowly with a sheepish grin on his face. He didn't even acknowledge the footsteps that were coming down the hallway into the living room until the person was within his sigh.

He slowly turned his head and looked up at his father, Garfield. He was rather slender like Tyler and roughly the same height at five foot nine. His hair was blonde, although one couldn't tell because Garfield kept his hair buzzed fairly short. Despite his well groomed head of hair, his beard usually grew in pretty thick before the man actually trimmed it. Tyler always protested and said that beards were better looking than a baby face.

Even Tyler himself had done well to not shave his beard, which was merely stubble due to him not shaving it, ironically.

"Look who's here." Garfield said to his son with a shake of the head.

Tyler bobbed his head with a laid back smile. "Yes I am."

"You were later than usual." His father noted as he slipped into the kitchen.

Tyler heard the refrigerator door open and the clink of a bottle as the man snatched a morning beer to start the day and opened it with his bare hand. He needed a bottle opener himself, but his father had seen combat as a Marine when he was younger. Tyler knew all too well that his father's hands felt like they were made of leather by this point. Yet his bottle opening skills never ceased to make him jealous.

"Yeah." Tyler rubbed his eyes and stretched out, thinking of the quickest lie he could. "I was busy at a tournament."

"That doesn't explain why you didn't check in." The man grumbled, now leaning against the doorway with a stern expression as he took a single gulp and waited for a further explanation.

"Well." Tyler sighed, leaning back with his arms across the back of the couch and a foot over his knee. "I wanted it to be a surprise." This only got a raise of the eyebrow and a hum from his father. So Tyler continued. "I got first place. The Sensei's picking up the trophy today and putting it in the display case."

Garfield's eyes widened and he nearly spat out his drink, but swallowed it and blinked at his son. "Really?" Tyler merely nodded. "Wow. Shit look at you, a big Karate club champion."

"Yep." Tyler grinned as he heaved himself to his feet. "Karate club."

It was an ongoing lie that Tyler used to keep his Ragnarok gang life a secret from his father. Yes it was true that at some point Tyler was a member of Koryo high school's Karate club and won a trophy, but that was for only four months during his freshman year and he had since then quit the club. Although the Karate club remained as an ongoing excuse to get out of the house quite often.

Tyler slipped by his father, earning a pat on the shoulder as he brushed by to grab a bowl of cereal before he would leave to report to the fists as a text indicated before he went to sleep. Not much information was told, all there was were instructions for him to head to Matsue park so that they could show off their newest member of the now Nine fists of Ragnarok.

Most likely a fight.

But who?

Tyler had no idea.

He quickly snarfed down his cereal and drank a huge cup of coffee, before slipping into his bedroom and throwing on a pair of black jeans, his converse, and his red hoodie.

He sat on his bed as he eyed his brand new Ragnarok gloves with admiration before opening his top dresser drawer and pulling out the first of many pocket knives that he could get a hold of. He flicked it open and quickly cut off all the fingers and smirked with his gloves now fitting his style as fingerless gloves.

Now he was ready and quickly left to go meet the fists for whatever they had planned.

"I'm off." He called to his father, who was under the impression Tyler was on his way to his annual Saturday Karate practice.

Yeah, sure.

With Tyler once again drowning out his long and quiet walk with his music he found himself at his destination in no time. As he entered the park and found himself shaded by the many trees overhead he was still singing along to his music, which by now was stuck on Tonight Tonight, by the Smashing Pumpkins.

He threw up his hood and casually stuffed his hands into his pockets as he entered the park, looking for the other fists. Eventually he found all eight of them sitting around a single bench waiting for him.

"You were almost late." Odin said as soon as he saw him.

Achilles hadn't yet taken out his earbuds, so he hadn't heard a single word he said until he put his music away. "Say what now?" He replied.

"Nothing." The first fist shook his head. "It's about time you got here, we almost missed our chance." Tyler didn't even think of a sarcastic remark for that. He was still too high so he just bobbed his head and listened real calmly. "As our new ninth fist we would like to demonstrate your abilities to any enemies."

"Alright!" Tyler said, slapping his hands together. "Who am I fighting? Come on!"

"You will be fighting Tsuji and what remains of his gang." Odin replied, adjusting his glasses. Most of the other fists weren't even that interested in it and all sat back, waiting for their chance to go home. The only two who seemed interested were Odin, Valkyrie, and Loki.

Achilles stopped himself getting pumped up about the fight and raised a dazed eyebrow. "My little buddies?" He said, letting a small grin escape.

"That's right." He replied, eyeing him real carefully. "Despite how you may feel, Tsuji and his gang left Ragnarok as of yesterday, so it's only fitting that they get a farewell beating from the whole gang. However, this is a special occasion, so they're all yours."

"Think you can handle it?" Loki asked with a grin.

"Hmm." Tyler hummed to himself. He didn't want to fight them, honestly, but he quickly shoved that aside. There was nothing personal about it and Tsuji was itching for a fight anyway. So if anything it was just a friendly fight. "Whatever." He waved it off. "Lets get this shit started!" He shouted, hopping on his toes, readily.

"I'm glad to see you're ready." Odin chuckled and glanced to the right. "And look who's right on cue." He said standing up from the bench.

The other eight fists followed his lead and they all walked around the corner and formed in front of Tsuji's gang who all gasped upon seeing the formation of the deadly fists. Tsuji himself seemed to be the only one who wasn't completely terrified and instead he was angry and ready to fight.

"You!" He grunted, aware of who was in front of him and how powerful they were, but he wasn't going down without a fight. "I was wondering when I'd see you losers."

"Hello, Tsuji. I'm glad you were expecting us." Odin greeted, adjusting his glasses again.

"I know you're all here to give me a farewell beat down, but don't think we're giving up without a fight." Tsuji said, looking at his last three men of his gang.

"We know." The purple haired man replied. "And despite the circumstances, you will only be fighting one of us today."

Tsuji's eyes widened. "Huh? Only one?"

"An old friend of yours." Odin replied then the fists stepped to the side, allowing the red hoodie wearing Achilles to approach Odin's side and fold his arms with a smirk. "Achilles."

Tsuji's men gasped as the other eight fists backed off and took their places around the fighters to trap them. Tyler's smirk was ever lasting, even though he really felt bad about fighting former allies.

Friendly fight, Tyler. Just remember, it's a friendly fight.

"So." Tsuji grunted with a wild grin. "You really did make it after all, huh?" He said before shaking his head and glaring at Tyler. "I always knew you'd make it some day, Achilles, but I always thought you had more loyalty to your friends than that." He then laughed and shrugged. "Guess I was wrong."

Tyler stretched his kneed to his chest and shook his head, then rolled his sleeves up. "Friends?" He laughed and shook his head again. "Nah, you guys are bullies. I'm not friends with bullies." He chuckled again and he took a few steps toward them and shrugged. "I never really wanted to join you in the first place, but there were fights and fun, so I guess it's cool."

"Just shut the hell up, you scrawny smart ass!" Tsuji pointed at him. "You may be the ninth fist, but I've seen you fight before, so you're in a lot of trouble!"

At that last shout Tsuji broke past his three men and charged at the red hooded fist with a fury that left his men standing completely still to watch. The ninth fist readied himself as the muscular man charged at him ready to destroy him and at the last second Tsuji jumped up to throw a flying punch on him.

Tyler's eyes widened and in his scatter brained state, his mind was immediately brought to a scene from a Bruce Lee movie. So Achilles rolled onto his back and kicked straight up into Tsuji's crotch, which landed on him with the full force of Tyler's kick, Tsuji's running, and Tsuji's weight combined.

The stronger man fell onto his stomach, groaning as he felt the kick pay dividends to his groin as Tyler stood up and turned around to face the three shaking followers.

"C-come on guys." One of them finally sighed after a few moments of Achilles just staring at them. He turned and mumbled so Tyler couldn't hear. "This is something Achilles has to do. His fights are never personal, so this should be an honor for us."

The other two blinked in realization of these words before suddenly shaking their heads and gaining determined expressions on their face. "Right." They said in unison before turning toward the ninth fist once more. "We'll fight you with all we've got!"

Tyler smirked from under his hood and shook his feet loose as he threw down his hoodie and zipped it up some. He hopped on his toes for a few seconds before making short little hops toward them before the three of them rushed towards him and surrounded him.

Tyler looked around and over his shoulder, keeping an eye on the three of them. They were all smart about it, however, as they all three attacked him in unison. They all punched him at the same time and Achilles blocked one, taking the other two to his body.

The second punches came toward his head and he blocked those at once, before pulling the opponents in front of them and bunching all three of them together. Then with a forward kick he pushed the three opponents backward, and now they weren't surrounding him anymore.

He came forward with a jumping kick, which was blocked, followed by a quick jab to the face of the one in the middle. He turned and kicked the man on the left in the face and blocked a punch, countering with a low cross for the opponent on the right. The middle man recovered and swung at him again, only to be blocked along with the next few punches. However, after the third one he immediately crossed his back foot over and kicked him in the knee before grabbing his shoulders and pulling him in for a knee to the stomach and he finished him with a heavy cross to the face.

Achilles looked over his shoulder and saw another opponent coming and waited a few second for him to get closer before quickly kicking his foot backward into his lower stomach. Then Achilles simply pushed the man onto his back by his forehead before noting the rest were still on the ground and therefore defeated.

But not Tsuji.

The muscular man stood there, now shirtless, ready and angry with a blood thirsty grin on his face as he looked at Tyler.

"Your hits are still weak and your kicks are still slow." Tsuji said aloud.

"And yet they all go together so nicely!" Tyler chuckled with a shrug. He glanced over his should at Odin. "Maybe that's why you guys like me."

"You may not have the best skills, and you're the least disciplined fighter I've ever fought." Tsuji grunted.

"Kiss my ass." Tyler shook his head at what sounded kind of insulting considering he was actually in Karate for a short while so he wasn't completely undisciplined.

"But you still know how to use your shitty skills to your advantage." He finished before putting his fists up. "And that's why you're the asshole I want to fight most!"

At that Tsuji came forward again. Tyler readied himself and once Tsuji was close enough he kicked upward with a simple front kick, but the muscular opponent sidestepped at the last moment and kicked him in the stomach. Tyler stumbled back an nearly fell after dodging a follow up punch toward his face.

A speedy hook came his way, which Achilles leaned back away from before coming forward again and landing a quick jab like a spring. Tsuji's heavy leg landed in Tyler's side after that rather ineffective punch, knocking Tyler to the side. Then suddenly the man spun in a circle, flinging his long hair around at what was most likely targeted at his face.

However, Achilles did the first thing he thought of and grabbed that long hair, pulling it back, causing Tsuji to shout from the pain of the hard tug. Tyler crossed with a hard elbow to Tsuji's nose, followed by a hard punch to the side of his jaw. A knee landed in his back, then finally Achilles tripped him backwards onto his back and finished by stomping the side of his face to knock him out cold.

Tyler panted, rather painfully too, he may have added as he stepped back from his opponent trying to hide his winded shape and horrible conditioning from the rest of the fists.

He grinned and chuckled a bit and leaned down toward Tsuji. "Believe me, this is nothing personal. I'm glad to have fought you." He took a few steps back and looked over at the others painfully picking themselves up from the ground. Then he waved at them. "Take care of the big guy!"

"That's enough, Achilles." Odin said, waving him toward him as the eight fists began to leave. Tyler caught up to the purple haired fist as he leaned in to speak to him while the others left. "You did well back there, though I highly suggest you start conditioning yourself a bit more. Anyway, now that you've defeated them, word will start to spread of you as the ninth fist and maybe those Shimpaku kids will disband." He shrugged and clapped him on the shoulder. "Anyway there's nothing else to do today, go ahead and just report to the hideout for gang business for now on."

"You got it, buddy." Tyler nodded, patting the first fist fearlessly on the shoulder and watched as Odin walked on and Tyler went in the other direction.

He immediately took out his music, but stopped once he passed by an alleyway and saw Valkyrie leaning back against the wall. She didn't look back at him and instead passed slowly by him. "We're on, Monday. Meet at the general store by the school."

Tyler noted her whispering and whispered back. "We should make out."

"Fuck you!" She hissed back and stomped her foot. "Did you even hear me?!"

"Sure did. Don't have my tuned in yet, see?" He held up his ear buds and smirked as Valkyrie rolled her eyes and began walking away.

Guess she was always good for a good laugh.

So they were attacking that chick on Monday, eh? A fight in front of an entire crowd of people sounded like the perfect place for him to fight Kenichi.

He now looked forward to it, but then Tyler groaned as he forced himself to pick up a light jog, and then a run as he made his way to his next destination to kill a few hours before going home. Damn laziness always holding him back.

* * *

 _ **Okay, so Tyler Winters isn't the most skilled fighter in the Nine Deadly fists. In fact, he's probably the LEAST skilled fighter out of the fist apart from Loki. It's actually a nice change of pace, since most of my characters end up being untouchable fighters and it's nice for a character to at least get beat up a few times for once.**_

 _ **Once again, I'm still trying to decide on who should be the love interest in this story. I'm actually trying to stay away from making it Shigure if I can, even though she's my favorite character.**_

 ** _But once again the candidates are._**

 ** _Renka._**

 ** _Kisara._**

 ** _Shigure._**

 ** _Cast your votes and leave your reviews. Thank you._**


	3. I Won't Fight You

**Chapter 3**

 **I Won't Fight You**

Monday had finally rolled around and after breezing through the school day, Tyler was finally on his way to meet Valkyrie for the fight he was well looking forward to. He hid his book bag just fine and ran to the general store and sure enough, there she was with some of her gang members gathered with her.

Tyler smirked as he approached her and shook his head. "Man, I don't know why you brought them." He grinned. "It's not like they're gonna be fighting."

"Oh shut it." She grunted upon seeing him. "You ready to do this thing?"

"A good fight and rebel against a moody guy in a hood?" Ty smirked and nodded. "I was born ready."

"Good. Keep your eye out for Shirahama." She ordered as they began their march toward the school. She kicked cans out of her way, her lip pursed and her expression hard and frustrated.

She was on a mission to hunt down whoever it was she was about to fight.

"So I've been wondering something." She forced herself to say through her bad attitude. "What kinda fighting style do you do anyway? Or are you just a street fighter?"

Tyler shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Pretty sure I'm classified as a street fighter." He stuffed his pockets as he casually looked around. "Why so curious anyway? Not like we'll be allowed to fight any time soon." He smirked and winked.

Valkyrie simply shrugged. "When I saw you fighting I noticed that I couldn't really recognize the way you fought. Maybe the Tsuji was right about you being an undisciplined fighter."

"Maybe he was." Tyler shrugged then looked up. "Actually now that I think about it the only teacher I've ever had was the Karate club teacher and every single movie or video I've ever seen, ever."

"Wait." Valkyrie stopped herself then pivoted and pointed in his face. "Movies are you freaking serious?!"

"Yeah." Tyler grinned, pushing her hand to the side. "Former schools usually seemed too rigid for me to become a good fighter, so I quit and started practicing on my own terms the way I wanted to fight."

"And the movies?" She peered at him, finding his training method quite stupid and ridiculous.

"Excellent training videos." He grinned, waving Valkyrie and her gang onward.

"Well I guess we're not that different. That's pretty much what I did too, apart from movies." She muttered with an annoyed frown as she went back to her angry, watchful gaze. "I can't wait to get my hands on that fucking dairy cow."

Tyler arched backwards at the nick name and laughed aloud. "Dairy cow?! What the hell kinda insult is that?!"

"It's not an insult, you ass!" Valkyrie shouted, trying her best to meet his height. Then threw a kick his way, which hit him in his stomach which was tightened thankfully. "I call her that because she's got tits the size of mount Everest!"

"Lady Kisara, calm down!" One of her lackeys said, pulling her away from Achilles. "He's on our side!"

"Ah, leave her be." Achilles waved it off with an amused grin. "I just like pissing her off."

"I can tell." She muttered, folding her arms as they continued on their way.

The group went silent for a few moments as they turned the corner, which was set to be the final corner before they could reach the entrance to the auditorium. Still no Kenichi Shirahama; this was a good sign. Not only had he not gotten in their way, but this also meant that he was most likely in the audience, which would give them a perfect audience to fight in front of.

Just what Tyler wanted.

"That dairy cow had better know what's coming." Kisara grunted to herself, oblivious to who was listening.

"Hey!" Came the shout of a voice from behind them. Achilles, Valkyrie, and the gang all turned around to look at who it was and much to the gang's surprise it was Kenichi, but Tyler didn't know that yet. "You guys are crazy if you think I'm gonna let you attack Miu during her performance! I'm not gonna let you touch her!" The boy said through his teeth.

Tyler quickly connected the dots and the red hooded fist nudged his fellow fist's arm. She glanced up at him and he merely gestured his head toward Kenichi, to which she nodded to confirm it. Then he gestured his head in the other direction and Valkyrie nodded.

"Come on, guys." She said in a cocky manner as they both continued walking.

Kenichi gritted his teeth and just as Tyler was turning around, the boy ran right at him, throwing a punch that just barely missed. He punched his way through Valkyrie's gang until he was standing right in front of all of them with his arms held straight out.

"Go ahead and beat me up, but leave Miu alone!" He demanded with a determined look on his face. "I won't fight you!"

Valkyrie was just about to let Achilles handle it, when she heard those words and flared her teeth with anger. "Didn't you hear my the last time? That kinda macho crap pissed me off!" She shouted, landing a heavy kick to Kenichi's stomach followed by another to his face. "I trained harder than anybody in my class and what did I get? I got some jerk saying he let me win a fight!" She shouted before landing another heavy kick to Kenichi. Tyler was surprised that he just stood there in a strong Karate stance and took the blows willingly. "It's guys like you who piss me off!"

With those last words she jumped up and swung her foot around again knocking him back several feet.

Kenichi lay flat on his back, seemingly defeated which gave Valkyrie a sort of smirk. "Oh well." She shrugged and turned to look at Achilles. "Guess I didn't need you after all."

"Not... so... fast." Kenichi grunted as he shook on the ground. Tyler watched casually from under his hood, noting Kenichi's toughness and ability to hold out in a fight. Then he stood all the way up with a scream. "I'm not done yet!" He said, panting from the pain of his attacks. "I understand how you feel and I'm sorry that guy hurt you. But I still won't give up my principals! I swore I'd never hit a girl!"

Valkyrie blinked and Tyler actually felt like clapping which made him snicker a bit. The kid was a decent speech giver, he had to give him that.

Suddenly, much to Tyler's surprise he could hear Kisara snicker and turn away. "You know I never can figure you out, Shirahama." Then she shook her head with frustration and started in the other direction. "Ugh, screw it this idiot completely killed the mood. Let's get out of here." She called to her men who painfully pulled themselves to their feet. Tyler remained still, however. "You can finish him off if you want, Achilles. He's all yours." She waved.

Achilles grinned over his shoulder and nodded, pulling his hands out of his pockets as he started to roll his sleeves up.

"Bout time." He grinned, his heart now racing as he itched to fight this guy after seeing how much punishment he could take. After his sleeves were all rolled up, the red hooded fist held out his arms and shrugged. "Are we done with all these speeches then?"

"Who are you?" Kenichi peered at him, his fighting spirit clearly evident just through the ferocity in his voice.

Tyler smirked and casually turned to the side. He scratched his hood, but turned his hand ever so slightly just so his Ragnarok glove could show. "Who me? I'm nobody, really."

"Wait." Kenichi muttered to himself as his eyes widened. "Nine? There are nine of you now?!"

"I think I might count as zero point five." Tyler tapped his chest with a grin. "But yes, there are now nine as of last Thursday. And I'd like a friendly fight to see what all the hype's about, is that cool?"

"That figures." Kenichi muttered under his breath before putting his fists up, ready to fight. "I don't suppose there's any way I could reason with you?"

"Dude." Achilles snickered to himself, and from under his hood he shook his head. "It's not like I dislike you or anything. It's all a matter of names." Kenichi simply blinked with confusion at those words without dropping his guard. "I think fighting should only be used to test your abilities or to defend yourself. If you hate the person then you end up an angry, sloppy mess." He chuckled.

"I see." Kenichi peered at him, then a slight grin appeared on his face. "Well I gotta say, you're the most decent member of Ragnarok I've ever met."

Tyler gave a gracious bow as his smirk widened. Then he shook out his arms and each leg as he bounced on his toes to get light on his feet. Then he stopped and held out his hand, waving Kenichi toward himself. "Let's tussle, mate." He smirked in a slightly cocky manner.

"Alright." Kenichi grinned, charging at him with a battle cry, because apparently all fighters in Japan had to shout when they charged in to attack.

Tyler couldn't really complain though, as he sometimes caught himself doing a high pitched monkey scream during his fights like Bruce Lee. So battle cries were evident in everyone, he guessed.

Kenichi charged right at him as Tyler just stood there with his arm outstretched, ready to counter punch with the other arm. Kenichi finally raised his fist and punched right at him and boy was it fast. Luckily Tyler's hand was practically already there, so blocking it was easy. He quickly turned his body and snapped his fist forward to counter punch Kenichi in the face.

Kenichi went for a block, but something was wrong. He blocked it, but it almost seemed too easy to block it. An what was even stranger, his opponent, the ninth fist had stopped moving and just stood there peering at Kenichi.

"You know what." Achilles said, taking a few steps back and waved at Kenichi. "I change my mind, Kenichi Shirahama."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Kenichi said as Tyler backed away then stopped with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"I don't wanna fight you right now." He shrugged, grinning at how confused Kenichi was. "No it's not a trick."

"But... why?" Kenichi said with a very confused raise of the eyebrow.

"Why fight you now, Kenichi Shirahama?" Tyler asked as he turned around and looked over his shoulder with a grin. "When there's nobody around to see you fall?"

Kenichi immediately understood, then. Tyler didn't want to hurt Kenichi, he wanted the victory. For the record and reputation, that was all. This new mystery guy sure was interesting, but Kenichi was actually relieved to have dodged two bullets.

He chuckled and waved at the red hooded stranger. "Alright, no worries."

"Don't get it twisted, dude." Tyler chuckled as he turned around. "I still want to fight you, just not right now. So go." He said, before pointing far into the distance. "Go to your big titted lady and recover from that ass whooping you just got." He grinned as he noted Kenichi's slightly hurt look at the mentioning of his beating. "We'll fight another day."

"Right." Kenichi nodded and turned around. The two of them went their separate ways for a few steps before Kenichi gasped and turned around. "Wait, I almost forgot." He called after the ninth fist. "What's your name?"

Tyler simply waved over his shoulder. "They call me Achilles. That's all you need to know right now." He grinned and kept walking.

Kenichi repeated the name to himself as Achilles continued to walk off into the distance. "Achilles."

Though he wondered why Achilles held the name of a Greek hero instead of a name from Norse mythology like the rest of the gang. However, he really couldn't answer that question, so he just shrugged it off as probably just the nickname that was given to him.

The disciple jumped as he felt a hand reach to his shoulder and he almost forgot about Nijima being with him before he confronted Kisara. Kenichi was just surprise that the alien hadn't run away by now.

"Wow, he's certainly an interesting fellow, isn't he?" Nijima grinned, still looking at Achilles before he disappeared around the first corner.

"Nijima." Kenichi said as he looked at the alien.

"While everyone is named after Norse mythology, that guy is Greek. How peculiar." He grinned wide and evilly, with his suspicion rader, aka his cowlick on the back of his head stuck up.

"Any idea why that may be?" Kenichi shrugged with his arms now folded.

"No clue." Nijima grinned, still very much interested in the new fist. "But he certainly fits the bill for the name."

The disciple blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Well from how the Iliad describes Achilles, that guy is a pretty accurate representation." He smiled and patted both shoulders on his still confused friend's shoulders. "Okay it's like this. See Achilles was the son of a sea nymph and a king, so he was inherently stronger than most humans, but when he was a baby his mother dipped him by his ankle into the river styx which made Achilles invincible, and while we don't yet know about his fighting skills I can already tell that his principals are quite similar."

"Really?" Kenichi chuckled. "How so?"

"You see Achilles loved fighting, but he was a hard man to boss around because he refused to fight in the name of a king." Nijima explained, ever so informed. "Rather, he fought for his own personal glory and to make his name bigger and better, but he did so honorably. So this is what I'm detecting from our new little enemy, the Ninth fist. In fact at one point Achilles get pissed and turns on the king in the middle of the war, so maybe if we're lucky he'll do the same." He said with a sly grin.

"He doesn't seem that stupid, Nijima." Kenichi shook his head with the roll of the eyes. "Still kinda goes against their whole Norse theme." He chuckled as he turned around towards the door. "Anyway, I'd better get to Miu's play."

Kenichi went to the door, but that was as far as he got before he broke down and sulked back to the wall. He was simply unable to bring himself to watch his big boobed wonder kiss that pretty boy, Tanimoto.

How sad.

* * *

 ** _Man I'm just spouting out chapters one after the other, rapid fire, aren't I? Well I just wanna get this new story on it's feet while the ideas are still fresh in my head._**

 ** _Alright so with the relationship issue, I've currently only gotten one vote and that's for Renka by a mister Greyjedi(Somethingsomething) Don't remember the numbers._**

 ** _Renka was actually my first consideration and I just might do that, but the story's still brand new so I'll give other people a chance to read the story and cast their votes._**

 ** _Once again the options are:_**

 ** _Renka_**

 ** _Kisara_**

 ** _Shigure_**


	4. Fight Club

**Chapter 4**

 **Fight Club**

Achilles had been getting very anxious, it had been almost a whole week since his encounter with Kenichi Shirahama and it had been a very uneventful week. Tyler was just too used to being a grunt for his former boss, Tsuji, fighting rival gangs and anyone else Tsuji got pissed off at. They were good times and left Tyler very excited in the end when the fights were going and very little guilt got to him because the enemies he fought for Tsuji rarely ever came back again.

One thing actually surprised Tyler after speaking more to Valkyrie, which was the fact that apparently Tsuji had faced off against Kenichi himself.

Three times!

One victory and two losses.

Where the fuck was he at that time? Clearly Tsuji never had the urge to tell Achilles that they had such a formidable foe, which kinda made him feel like he missed out. However, he had already beaten Tsuji and was now the Ninth fist, so it was only a matter of time before he could have his fight with Shirahama and see what all the hype was about.

That week, though.

No fights were had during Tyler's latest week as the Ninth fist.

None whatsoever.

He was itching to have a friendly fight with someone, anyone. He actually considered heading down to the underground fighting ring that Thor and his men ran, but never got around to it.

Why?

Well because in the absence of Tyler's fighting he only got around to doing about four things with his time. Practicing, lazing around the house, checking in with the fists, and smoking.

A lot.

He was actually surprised that his piss hadn't started to turn green, but he felt pretty chill most of the time and it was nice to relax, he supposed. Although he was fully aware that his lack of action would diminish his skills, he wasn't worried and he figured that practicing at home would keep him on track. So for that week he used a lot more of his time on doing art work since he wasn't needed for the fists.

One day, on the fifth day after he met Kenichi Tyler finally decided he needed to find some action. He had to find something to do for the fists, anything. He had started to feel like his presence as the Ninth fist of Ragnarok was rather unnecessary. Most of their enemies up to that point had been dealt with and the only one that still hadn't been dealt with was being fought over like wolves fighting over a kill.

Hermit had fought Kenichi the same day Tyler first met him, and since them the sixth fist hadn't checked in to the other eight. So Odin eventually handed over the responsibility to Loki, the supposed tactical master of the Nine fists. Achilles didn't know much of anything about Loki, but according to Valkyrie, Loki was all about tricks and strategy, rather than martial arts.

He wasn't sure how versatile of an opponent that made the fourth fist, but that didn't matter. He had to miss out on a supposedly strong opponent yet again, just because someone else called it before him.

So he needed to practice some way or another that was better than beating on his punching bag in his back yard.

Once he reached his destination, the guards at the front door simply snapped to attention and let him in. They didn't even have to ask who he was anymore. They all knew who the Ninth Fist was and what he looked like. Tyler had taken to using his red hoodie all the time when he was on Ragnarok business. He had never really had a uniform before, but he supposed that wearing something recognizable would help his image so people would know. So the red hood had become sort of a uniform by itself. He needed something with a hood. Something to hide his identity, so that way he wouldn't be recognized at school. His reputation as a gang member was not something he wanted to be mixed with his reputation as a laid back and well known artistic school boy. Someone that nobody would fear.

After all Tyler had to do something with his life when he was an adult and being a fighter twenty four seven felt like it would burn him out eventually. So art was his secondary path. Hopefully one day he would become a well known artist.

"Achilles." The guard nodded to him respectfully.

Tyler simply smirked at them and nodded at them as he passed through the doors. He went straight into the rec room first to look for Odin, where he saw only Loki and Berserker playing a hand of poker.

"Hey guys." Achilles greeted, earning a wide grin and wave from Loki. "You seen Odin around here?"

He was looking straight at Berserker, the silent one, but he got an answer from Loki instead. In fact, the second fist didn't really pay Tyler's existence much attention.

"Other room." Loki pointed over his shoulder at the door to the training hall.

"Thanks." Tyler grinned and looked back at the second fist who simply popped his bubble gum. "Thanks, Berserker."

Nothing.

Not cool.

Tyler raised an eyebrow and looked at Berserker's cards. He whistled and nodded. "Man that's not good." He said with utter sarcasm, seeing as his hand was a royal flush. "You don't play very often do you?"

Again nothing.

Tyler touched his thumb to his chin and hummed to himself. Loki smirked with amusement at Achilles's failure to earn a response from the calm and cool Berserker.

Suddenly Tyler smirked as an idea popped into his head. More like wanting to see what would happen if he did it. So he grabbed the back of the second fist's chair and leaned next to his ear. "Hey, Berserker. Don't say anything if I can take your chair from you."

Obviously nothing was said and Berserker continued to pop his bubblegum.

"Thanks, buddy." The Ninth fist chuckled as he ripped the chair from underneath Berserker, but much to his surprise the second fist didn't fall. He was sitting in a perfect sitting position without a chair, using only his immense leg strength. Tyler whistled again and peered at him in amusement. "Well played. Very well played."

"You don't play this game very often, do you?" Berserker replied, repeating Tyler's phrase back to him in an ironic manner.

"The see who annoys the other first game?" Tyler chuckled then shook his head. "Actually I do, with Valkyrie. I win a lot."

"Whatever." The second fist replied, snapping his gum.

Tyler chuckled to himself and shook his head as he turned around and went into the training room to speak to Odin. He immediately spotted the first fist sitting in the back of the room while Thor, Valkyrie, and Freya practiced in the center of the room.

Achilles made his way around the training equipment and sat on the step in front of Odin's seat. He nodded up at him. "What's up, Odin?"

"Achilles. Nice of you to stop by." He greeted, raising a book up as he continued to read.

"How goes the hunt for those Shimpaku people?" He asked, as he did first each time.

"You could ask Loki, only he knows." The first fist replied nonchalantly.

"Figures." He nodded and leaned back and looked up at him. "Well I haven't done much in a while, are you sure there's nothing else to do?"

"Not that I know of." Odin replied, flipping a page.

"God dammit." Tyler grunted and shook his head with a sigh. "Well how often do you guys usually fight?"

"Most of us are training when we're not fighting. You should really try it some time." He replied coolly.

"Fighting is my training though." Achilles replied.

"Then you're like Berserker. He's a street fighter and he regularly picks street fights or fights with rival gangs." Odin explained, flipping another page. "Maybe you should ask him."

Tyler chuckled to himself and glanced at the door to the other room. "Something tells me he's not in the mood to talk."

With a loud grunt and a heavy palm strike, Thor stopped his training and called out to him. "Hey Achilles!" He shouted, getting his attention. "I think I know a place you might like!"

"Oh yeah?" Tyler grinned down at him.

"I run an underground fight ring down by the docks." He explained, while waving him over. "If you want I could bring you there."

Achilles beamed from under his hood with a wide grin. "Oh fuck yeah I do!" He shouted back, hopping to his feet excitedly. "Lets go!"

"Then it's settled." Odin chuckled, waving back at him. "Have a good time, Achilles."

The Ninth fist and the Seventh fist both left their hideout, with the sumo wrestler leading the street fighter. Achilles was actually kind of surprised that Thor offered to help him like he did, because the impression that he had about the other eight fists was that they were all condescending and were only interested in furthering their own goals.

It didn't take someone who was well informed about them to figure that out. Just being in their presence and seeing the way they acted was good enough.

Achilles grinned widely as they started their walk down the street and he slapped Thor's shoulder. "Hey, thanks for the help, good buddy." He said, causing Thor to look over at him. Tyler simply pointed over his shoulder. "Something tells me that the others wouldn't help me like this."

"Hahaha!" Thor laughed and nodded with a thumbs up. "Don't mention it. I gotta say you're like a fighting junkie, aren't you?"

Tyler understood it immediately but he simply chuckled and shook his head. "No. It's not that I need to fight, it's that I don't want to loose my fighting edge, which is my instinct." He waved his hands out in front of him once as he explained it to Thor. "See when a person fights a lot, then it's like a snowball effect. They start to gain instinct, and they become familiar with the atmosphere of a fight." Thor raised his eyebrows with curiosity as Achilles spoke. "When they gain instinct, they know what a fight feels like and they know exactly what they're going to do during a fight."

"That actually makes a lot of sense." Thor nodded and looked off in thought. "When I watch the fights at the fight club, the person who defeats everyone always seems to get better with the more fights he gets into. It's kind of like working themselves into a trance." He nodded then shrugged with a wide grin. "Then I step in there and it's all over for them."

Tyler laughed and nodded. "Hah! Right!"

"You know everybody's been asking the question of who would win in a fight between you or Berserker." He chuckled.

Achilles grinned at the thought then looked over. "Why him?"

"Well your fighting styles are pretty similar. You're both street fighters." Thor explained then shrugged. "Then again you do have more formal training than him."

"Yeah, but I'd rather not have form." Tyler explained with a shake of the head. "Bruce Lee went against form and I can't argue with the dragon." He said with a wide grin.

"Ah a movie person, eh?" Thor chuckled as they rounded the corner into the docks area. Warehouses, shipping equipment and crates were everywhere so Tyler figured they were just about there.

"Life would be boring without them." Tyler chuckled and shook his head. "I don't think I could read all freaking day."

"Sure." Thor chuckled with a nod before stopping and nodding his head. "Well here we are."

Achilles looked forward at the area in front of them. Two empty warehouses with a narrow alley between them which had a light illuminated at the back. Two gang members stood guard at the entrance.

"Sweet." He nodded and they both started into the place. "Tell me, Thor, do you know the first rule of fight club?"

He simply blinked at him and shook his head in amusement. "No, what?"

Achilles simply shook his head. "Oh pitiful. Now I can't tell you."

Their voices were drowned out by the sound of men cheering and the packing of punches mixed with struggling grunts. Everyone was looking straight down at what seemed to be an eight foot deep concrete hole in the ground with two men fighting at the bottom. Though the fight did seem to be very one sided. One of the men wore a full Karate gi, while the other wore only a pair of green trunks and nothing else.

"Is this fight enough for ya, Achilles?" Thor laughed at Tyler's astonished look.

"Hell no." He shook his head, causing Thor's grin to drop. Then Tyler pointed down into the pit. "Because I'm not down there."

"Hah! Good one!" Thor laughed and waved his fellow fist to follow him to the west side of the pit where a chair sat at the top of a small platform for the leader to sit.

Thor took his seat and watched the fight going down in there with Achilles folding his arms in amusement as the shirtless guy took down the Karate user within moments.

The winner laughed as the spectators all cheered him on and he pumped his fists into the air. "Is that it then? Do I get to take on the champ now?!"

"Not quite!" Thor shouted back at him, his grin returning as he glanced over at Tyler who smirked and nodded at him. He thought about removing his sweatshirt, or at least his hood, but that was too much of a risk for his true identity, so he kept it on. "Your next opponent will be this guy!" Thor pointed to the red hood.

"Alright then." The victor grinned and waved Tyler towards him. "Bring it on then."

Tyler smirked as he made his way forward and hopped down into the hole, ignoring the ladder they had set up, which was quickly pulled out of his reach. Achilles watched his only means of escape being pulled out of his reach, which made him realize that this place was almost the perfect fighting area.

"You gonna remove that stupid hood then, tough guy?" Tyler's opponent asked to him with a laugh.

The Ninth fist simply shook his head as he turned around with his sleeves rolled up and him stretching his limbs out already. "Nope. Helps with the persona."

"What persona?" The man's grin widened, however it dropped once Tyler raised his hand, revealing his Ragnarok glove to him. "So you're the one they call Achilles, then."

"Mmhm." He nodded with a smirk. "Gotta play dress-up in order for people to know who I am. And here I thought the pretty smile would do the trick."

"Ah shut it." The man waved it off and put his fists up. "I don't care what they say about you, I'm gonna change that really fast!" He shouted as he came forward with a long range kick, which merely hit the wall.

Achilles side stepped and just as his opponent's foot hit the wall he kicked his other foot out from underneath him, causing him to do a full splits before Tyler could land a powerful side kick to the side of his head.

The man was down quickly rolling around while holding the spot that was kicked. His groans made it very clear that Achilles was the victor.

"Woah, did you see that awesome counter attack?" One of the spectators asked.

The man next to him nodded. "Yeah he waited for his attack and took advantage of his opponent during the attack. No wonder they made him the ninth fist." Then they both raised their fists into the air and the crowd commenced cheering.

"Yeah! Achilles! Achilles! Achilles!" They all chanted as Tyler's opponent was lifted out of the pit.

"Next!" He snapped into the air, causing the spectators to look at each other. Then Tyler started to wave his arm in a circle. "Wow I'm getting kinda slow today. I shouldn't have drank so much before I got there." He lied, baiting his opponents.

It seemed to work eventually on a few spectators who were much larger than everyone else, but only large in terms of physique. The first one who was picked quickly lowered himself into the pit and faced the Ninth fist.

"I'm a little faster than that last guy." The man immediately said before readying himself. "I'd like to see you counter attack me."

"Hey, I'm supposed to be the cocky one." Tyler chuckled and shrugged waiting for the man to attack first.

There was a moment of silence as they both stared each other down before Tyler's opponent finally grinned tauntingly at him. "Come on, hit me. Lets go, come on." He taunted, and it worked.

Achilles in his powerful feeling stepped toward him and threw a sort of half-assed punch, which was thrown to the side easily by a block, however that was the plan as Achilles quickly followed up by kicking the man in the knee which made him stumble a little. He followed up after he saw him stumble and went for a head kick.

However that attack was quickly blocked, causing his opponent to get a quick punch in on his solar plexus which felt like only a little air had been knocked out of him. Tyler took a step back as his opponent started relentless attacks with kicks that were pretty fast and relentless, giving him no opening to close the gap. Eventually his opponent backed Tyler up into the wall, causing one of the kicks to hit him square in the mouth and knocked his head back against the wall.

Another attack landed on his stomach which lingered for a few seconds and Tyler's first instinct was to grab the wrist and twist. The lock caused the man to shout in pain and back off a little, which gave Tyler enough time to step forward with a heavy stomach kick. The opponent swung at him again, but Tyler knew that he couldn't keep backing up from the more relentless attacks.

So he took a step forward while the kicks were flying and blocked one of them and just as the second one came his way he ducked down and wrapped his arms around his legs. The man was so surprised by the sudden and unexpected grapple that Tyler was able to lift him up and slam him back down with ease.

 _"Double leg take down."_ Tyler thought to himself. _"Never thought I'd ever have to use that wrestling crap dad taught me."_

The slam was more than enough to knock the breath out of his opponent, and after a few seconds of him not getting up, Tyler kicked him and threw his hands into the air. The crowd chanted his name once more as the man he was previously fighting was pulled up out of the pit.

Tyler simply leaned back against the wall and looked up at them with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I'm pretty sure I saw some more guys who wanted to go next." He smirked at them. However all he was met with was silence as none of them dared to face him in a fight. He nodded then glanced up at the sumo wrestler and shrugged. "Guess that means it's you and me, Thor."

"Hahaha! I guess so!" Thor laughed then looked off. "But I don't know, the fists are forbidden to fight each other."

Achilles had to think about that or at least some sort of loophole for it then he finally chuckled and shrugged. "Who said it's a fight? This is just how I train. So come train with me, good buddy!" He said waving the Seventh fist down to join him.

Thor chuckled and nodded to himself. _"This guy."_ He thought to himself. _"He seems more like a drug addict than a martial artist."_ This caused him to snicker to himself at the thought before finally answering Achilles.

"Alright, rookie." Thor began, before immediately being interrupted by Tyler.

"No rookie." He grinned back.

"Whatever, I'll fight you anyway." Thor chuckled as he climbed down into the pit with his spectators making room.

He landed with a heavy thud on both of his feet in front of Achilles who casually leaned off the wall. The spectators all mumbled to each other in astonishment of what was happening.

"I can't believe it." One of them mumbled, running his hands through his hair. "Two fists fighting each other."

"I know, right?" Another mumbled back a wide and excited grin spread across his face. "This is some shit that people usually only fantasize about."

Thor laughed aloud once he was in the pit and slipped off the top of his kimono, letting it hang over his belt to reveal his massive body, which appeared both fat and extremely muscular at the same time. It was really hard to tell which of those Thor actually would be considered.

"Hahaha! You know even though you joke around too much you're still a much funnier guy than that idiot, Loki." Thor chuckled as he stomped on the floor.

Achilles smirked from under his hood and started bouncing on his toes in preparation. "No such thing as joking too much."

"Eh, I'll have to disagree with you on that one." Thor chuckled before stomping a second time and placing his palms flat on the floor.

The crowd was split right down the middle between Thor and the new Ninth fist that they had just met.

"Go Thor!"

"Achilles!"

Eventually they didn't really know who to root for so the cheering gradually halted and it was left with only silence as they watched the fight prepare. Tyler stretched his knees to his chest and his arms backwards before rolling his shoulders and nodding at the seventh fist.

Thor clapped his hands above his head as a sign of himself as ready. Tyler shifted his stance sideways with his arms tucked in close to his body, rather than outward as he normally had them.

Thor and Achilles circled each other in the pit, sizing each other up and it was at this moment at the beginning of the fight that Thor had the upper hand. Thor had actually witnessed Tyler's fighting habits several times by now.

 _"Even though I've seen him fight already, he's still unpredictable."_ Thor thought to himself as he peered at Achilles.

Tyler on the other hand, had nothing to go by. All he knew was that Thor was a Sumo user, and he knew nothing about Sumo, so he would have to stick to the defensive, which didn't really matter to him, because he was _always_ on the defensive. Though Achilles did go by common sense and made it a point not to try and hurt Thor in the body area, since he would most likely feel next to nothing.

His arms and legs were built to almost monstrous levels, but still had the joints vulnerable. Which left Tyler with only Thor's head, which was only protected by Thor's defensive capabilities.

Tyler adjusted his stance from slow, steady steps to hopping on his toes to get his speed up a bit. As he hopped from foot to foot he came forward bit by bit until he was getting close to Thor's range.

He took a quick hop into Thor's range and went for a quick low jab to Thor's stomach, expecting him to at least try and block it. However, the sumo didn't even attempt to block it.

Duh.

Because he didn't have to.

Achilles hopped back out of Thor's range after that and continued to size him up and look for openings. He quickly went for a fake jab toward the man's head, which he blocked with a heavy palm, which kind of hurt Tyler's fist a bit and hurt it even worse when the palm closed in on his hand and made it unable for Tyler to free it.

"Got you now!" Thor grinned once he caught his opponent's hand.

Tyler wasn't exactly the type to make conversation _during_ the fight, unless he was taunting him and feeling unusually cocky. However, this was not one of those cases.

Achilles thought quickly and stepped forward for a quick upward kick, hitting the bottom of Thor's jaw. The sumo let go of Tyler's hand and held his mouth a bit after the attack.

"You made me bite my tongue!" Thor grunted as Tyler continued to hop around.

"Can't talk when you're fighting, dude." Tyler shrugged.

Thor grunted and immediately stepped in and swung straight forward with a palm strike, followed by another, then another. After the third one Tyler slipped by the attack and countered with a quick round house kick to Thor's stomach, but yet again it did nothing.

Tyler cursed to himself upon remembering that it was useless to attack there.

Thor immediately pivoted after the kick and hit him with a heavy palm strike as if the kick never even hit at all. This palm sent Tyler flying backward, hitting his back hard against the wall.

It was bad enough that Tyler had a problem with not having powerful attacks on a normal opponent, but Thor had extra padding on him making his attacks do virtually nothing to those areas.

 _"Gotta stick to the weak points, jackass."_ Tyler thought to himself.

He shook his arms upon feeling Thor's attack pulse with pain on both his chest and back. The sumo advanced toward him as Tyler took a step with a quick jab to test the range. Thor simply blocked it and stepped forward as Achilles backed up right into the wall. Thor's mighty hand came forward for another palm strike with Achilles seemingly trapped.

However, once Thor got close enough Tyler pushed his body forward, while swinging his foot straight forward against the side of Thor's face. The Sumo was stumbled back a bit and Tyler followed up with a quick jab to the jaw, followed by an elbow to the same side. He swung his fist a third time with a quick hook. Then he swung his foot forward once Thor doubled over to the side with bruises on his jaw already.

Once Tyler went for the kick Thor stuck his arm out and caught it, holding Tyler completely helpless in his grin despite his attempts to jerk it free.

"Those were good punches." Thor admitted to him as he looked up at his opponent. "But your weaknesses are very clear."

Achilles grunted to himself at the accusation. "I have no weaknesses."

Thor simply chuckled and began to stand up, holding Tyler's leg higher and higher until was right at his head height. It was at this point that Tyler began to stumble as he ran out of stretch. Eventually he fell onto his back with Thor still lifting his foot straight up.

He looked to Thor's legs with a rush of quick thoughts as he immediately swung his free foot straight down and hit the top of his knee. Then he kicked outward with a useless attack to Thor's stomach, which was followed up by an upward kick to the seventh fist's wrist, which cause his grip to let to of the foot.

Tyler thought back to earlier and once he got his foot back he immediately put his feet under himself and charged forward, wrapping his arms around Thor's right leg and he just barely lifted it off the floor.

"Grappling a sumo?" Thor laughed as he stomped his foot down to the floor, but Tyler still held on. "Bad idea."

Tyler lifted it again and his first thought was to trip Thor's other leg that he was standing on, but before he had a chance to do that he felt Thor's beefy arms wrap around his own body from above.

The seventh fist then lifted Tyler upside down until he was right above the sumo's head before slamming him straight onto his back, knocking the wind straight out of him. Tyler felt all ability to breathe and even function rush straight out of him immediately and he was left gasping for air. He attempted to fight through it. Gasping for air, while also pushing himself to stand again, however once he was to his feet he did not see Thor's palm strike coming and was swiftly knocked unconscious.

* * *

Tyler woke a few minutes later by Thor himself above the pit while the sounds of another fight was already in progress. The sumo slapped his cheek while Tyler blinked and his vision began to return to him.

"Aha! There you are." He chuckled, slapping Tyler's cheek a bit. "You alright?"

Tyler groaned to himself, knowing full well that he had just lost the fight, making him instantly aware that at least twenty guys had witnessed him loose. Very damaging to his reputation.

Tyler then chuckled and nodded. "Yeah." Then he looked up. "Looks like you found my Achilles heel."

"Hahaha! That's exactly what happened!" Thor laughed as he helped the Ninth fist to his feet. "But you did pretty good, I must say you did some damage to my face. Hope you didn't take too much of my beauty away." The seventh fist rubbed his chin in a cocky manner.

Achilles grinned and slapped Thor's cheek a bit. "Nah, there's no ruining that gorgeous face." He chuckled as he stood straight up, feeling his dizziness quickly leave.

"Had your fill of fights for today?" Thor chuckled as he watched Achilles relearn how to walk.

The red hooded fist simply nodded. "Pfft, try for the month." He chuckled.

A voice suddenly interrupted their conversation. "Well that sure is a shame. I had a business proposition for you."

Loki.

Thor and Achilles didn't even have to look, the voice was very recognizable.

"Oh yeah? Lay it on me." Tyler replied, folding his arms.

"How would you like to fight Kenichi Shirahama?" The mesh goggle wearing man asked with a devious grin.

Achilles simply shrugged with a slight smirk and held a thumbs up. "I'd love it."

Thor rolled his eyes at the fourth fist and returned to watch the fights.

"Huh." Loki shrugged. "You know I had a nice little bribe nice and ready thanks to your little fight with Thor, but oh well." He then slung an arm around the Ninth fist's shoulder and they both started toward the exit. "Come on, I'll give you the details on the way, we gotta hurry."

"Sounds cool." He nodded then looked over his shoulder and waved. "Later, Thor!"

The sumo waved back, with nothing to be said, but he knew exactly what was going on. Loki was planning on using Achilles for some sort of scheme against Kenichi Shirahama. The very fact that Loki had planned it meant that it was more than just challenging him with honor, there was some sort of bait and trickery involved.

 _"Watch out, Achilles."_ Thor thought to himself. _"He'll drag you down."_

* * *

 ** _Alright another chapter gone. Obviously it's a longer chapter than the others so far and I'm glad._**

 ** _Not much to be said for now. I'm still waiting for votes to be casted for the love interest. We already got one vote for Renka._**

 ** _Remember the choices are._**

 ** _Valkyrie_**

 ** _Renka._**

 ** _Shigure._**

 ** _Please cast your votes and send me your reviews and have a great day._**


	5. Achilles' Heel

**Chapter 5**

 **Achilles' Heel**

As the sun was just going down over the horizon Loki lead the Ninth fist, Achilles to the fight he had been waiting for all this time. The red hooded fist was so excited in fact that he was literally bouncing up and down on his toes from how pumped up he was.

"So tell me, bucko. How'd you manage to find the little guy anyway?" Achilles asked and tapped the fourth fist on the arm.

Loki snickered with a wide grin and shrugged. "Well it was quite simple, really. See Seigfried and I found the leader of the Shimpaku alliance trying to spy on us earlier so we captured him and now we're preparing to stow him away on a cargo ship."

"Dude, that's fucked up on so many levels." Achilles shook his head as his bouncing slowed down to a steady walk. "So what makes you think that Kenichi guy will show up?"

"Oh he will." Loki nodded with a grin, almost amused. "See when the shimpaku kid was chased by Seig he was thrashing around so much that he slipped every bit of his clothes off one by one, leaving a trail. I thought about picking them up to cover our tracks, but I figured I might as well do someone else a favor too and get you that fight you've always wanted." Loki shrugged as they reached the warehouse where they would be hiding out.

"Sweet." He pumped his fist then stopped himself and nudge the fourth fist. "But seriously. Shipping the kid to a different country? Don't you think that's a bit too much?"

"Of course it's too much, that's how I know it'll make those Shimpaku brats back down for sure." Loki nodded with a sinister laugh.

Achilles rolled his eyes from under his hood and folded his arms. He could faintly hear the tune of a piano playing from inside the warehouse, so he looked and saw Seigfried playing away.

"Yeah whatever, jackass. You're still an asshole for doing it." He grumbled as he watched Seigfried's musical talent at work.

Loki joined him and bobbed his head, noting the marvelous tune that was being made. "Wow, pretty good. I actually think I might like this one." He grinned widely.

The ninth fist leaned against the wall with his arms folded. "Eh, I don't give a rats ass about classical music."

There was a long pause as he and Loki listened away to Seigfried's newest melody, which according to what Valkyrie had told him was based off fights he had. Apparently he got his melodies from being inspired through fighting.

"You!" Came a loud and furious voice from out of no where.

Tyler glanced to his left as did Loki and saw Kenichi Shirahama standing with a furious sneer on his face accompanied by a girl wearing spandex which made Tyler mentally thank whoever invented spandex.

"Well lookey here." Achilles smirked and nodded excited. "Looks like you didn't completely waste my time after all Loki." He said holding his arms out. "Only partially."

"You're welcome." Loki snapped back with a roll of the eyes.

Tyler chuckled and looked back to the two enemies who looked at him furiously. Kenichi simply shook his head and took a step forward. "Where is he, Achilles?" This caused the American to simply raise an eyebrow in slight confusion and part uncaring apathy. "Where's Nijima?!"

"Nijima?" He replied, now lost in thought. "That Shimpaku leader dude?" He replied, having zero clue what the guy looked like.

"Yes! Now tell me where he is now, you bastard!" Shirahama shouted back with a fist raised in front of him.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Tyler shrugged. "I'm just here to fight you." Then he turned and peered at the fourth fist. "You didn't tell me you kidnapped somebody."

"What does it matter, Achilles?" Loki snickered at him and shrugged. "How do you think I was able to lure him here?"

"Gee I don't know. Maybe challenging him straight up instead of kidnapping somebody like a dickhead." He replied shaking his head in annoyance. "Fucks sake, man."

"Don't question my tactics. Don't forget that's my specialty." Loki snickered before looking over the red hood's shoulder at Kenichi. "To be honest I'm actually surprised you came, Shirahama! I found out that Nijima was somebody who bullied you in school. So tell me why did you come?"

"I came because he's my bad friend!" Kenichi shouted back, waving his hand down. "That's my only reason!"

"Very funny." Loki snickered. "My plan getting ruined by that kind of idiotic reason goes against my art!" He sight and turned, shaking his head. "Oh well, at least you get your fight, Achilles."

"You're the ultimate asshole, Loki." Tyler grunted before turning and rolling his sleeves up to prepare. "Whatever a fight's a fight, I guess."

Tyler turned to fight Kenichi when suddenly the door to the warehouse slammed open and Siegfried burst out. Everyone turned their heads to look at the fifth fist who stood there with a furious sneer on his face.

"You're all too noisy! You ruined the last part of my melody!" He shouted with his teeth flared. "I'll kill you."

Kenichi shook his head and looked to the three fists again. "I'll ask you one more time, where's Nijima?!"

"You don't honestly think that we're going to tell you, do you?" Loki snickered and shook his head. "You'll have to get the information by force, but I think you're quite outnumbered."

"Like fuck he is!" Tyler scoffed and turned to his fellow fist. "You guys get nothing."

"Where is he, Loki?!" Kenichi shouted.

"He's in a shipping crate on a ship." Siegfried replied, causing everyone to stare at him with a baffled look.

"Okay." Kenichi murmured with shock. "Which one?"

"I believe it's that one." Sieg pointed before stepping in front of Tyler. "You may fetch your friend if you can defeat me."

"No goddamn way!" Achilles replied stepping in front of the fifth fist. "Wait your own damn turn!" He pointed in his face.

"I'll only warn you once, because you're new." He grunted at the ninth fist. "If you get in the way of me and my melody. I'll kill you."

Tyler pointed in his face. "Alright, listen asshole-"

"It's no use." Loki interrupted and gathered Tyler's attention. "There's no stopping him once he gets this way." He waved the ninth fist over. "Come on. Another day, Achilles."

Tyler shook his head and brushed past the fifth fist. "Fucks sake, man."

He and Achilles turned in the other direction and headed toward the far end of the warehouse, leaving Siegfried to deal with Kenichi and his sexy lady friend. Once they rounded the corner, Tyler looked to see the blonde girl sprinting after them. The ninth fist rushed over to Loki and pushed him into the escape vehicle they had and shut the door.

"What are you doing?!" Loki shouted at him.

Tyler backed away with a shrug. "What can I say, I'm still hungry for a fight. Go on, get!" He replied, waving him away.

The truck started up and Loki quickly sped away. Tyler watched as the vehicle disappeared then looked over his shoulder to see Shirahama's friend rounding the corner. She stopped once he paid her attention and the two of them had a stand off.

"Alright, tough guy." She sneered at him as he folded his arms with a smirk. "You want a fight so bad? I'll give you a fight."

"Aww. How sweet of you, darlin." He smirked, backing away. "Well we may as well get a change of venue." He said as he backed across the street with the girl following him with a vicious frown. He lead the girl across the street between two huge shipping crates before he stopped and peered at her upon recognizing her. "Hold up, I know you." he pointed with a smirk. "You're Miu Furinji. Koryou High School, yeah?"

The girl stiffened and shook her head in shock. "What?! Who me?! What would ever give you that idea?! I don't know what you're talking about!" She denied rather heavily.

"I'm just well informed." He lied. Being quite possibly the worst informed member of Ragnarok of all time. "Okay, Miu Furinji." He said with a nod and folded his arms. "I'm here to fight..." He nodded again as she simply stared intensely and cold at him. So he continued. "But I'm not moving until I hear that you're in."

The girl suddenly froze with shock and confusion and blinked at him. "I-I-I what?"

"You're in." He replied and waved his hands in explanation. "You know, consent and all that shit."

Every single time this happened, they acted like he was a lunatic.

"What on earth are you talking about?" She glared at him, not for an instant dropping her guard.

Achilles chuckled from under his hood and clapped his hands together. "Alright look I said I wanted a fight, but I don't like to do it if my opponent doesn't want to. That is if I can help it." He explained before waving his hands. "So come on, you in or what, man?"

"Umm... Yeah I- I guess." She blinked again, in astonishment.

"Good." He sighed and nodded. "Good."

Tyler turned around and rubbed his eyes tightly before blinking and tensing his muscles for a brief moment. He reached up into his hood and bound his blonde locks with a band to secure it. Since she was from his school he had to be extra careful.

He didn't like the thought of fighting this girl. Not that he wouldn't fight a girl, but mostly because of what Loki had done. He kidnapped this chick's friend and for Tyler to fight her now it just felt like he was doing exactly what the manipulative ass wanted him to do.

Still, this was the same exact girl that the eighth fist wanted to fight so badly. Obviously she had to know something for Valkyrie to be so hungry for a fight like that.

"Are you gonna fight me or just stand there like a chump?" Miu asked with a strong sense of animosity in her tone.

Tyler couldn't help but grin slightly in admiration for her ferocious tone. Then the red hood nodded and turned around, rolling his shoulders before putting his hands up readily.

Miu had been in her respected stance this whole entire time and hadn't moved at all. Great focus.

Achilles eyeballed her without any thought and immediately made a quick kick at her ankle which she easily checked. Tyler went for it again and once again was blocked.

The image of the fourth fist's smug grin flashed in Tyler's mind as he tried to fight her. He went for another ankle kick followed by a body punch, but the next thing he knew he was on his back behind her with the wind knocked out of him staring up at the sky and up the length of the back of Miu's body as she turned around and looked down at him as he sat himself up.

He couldn't stop thinking about it. That blue haired prick actually did some shit like this. Then again it was to be expected from a gang, but Ragnarok was clearly different. They were a martial arts gang and even went against death matches for the most part.

But Loki.

The guy stooped so low as to kidnap some half-ass weakling who posed no real threat for as far as they knew.

Tyler looked down between his legs as he sat up and he shook his head with a sigh. "Forget it." He murmured as he heaved himself to his feet and took a step in the other direction.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?!" Miu shouted with hostility.

Achilles simply sighed and turned around with an annoyed stare. "I'm going home! Alright? I'm just not in the mood to fight, I'm sorry."

Miu stilled and blinked at him. "You're sorry?"

"I'll have to postpone for some other time or something." He replied, rubbing his eyes with anxiety. He shook his head as he stepped out of the alley way before turning around and shaking his head at the ever still blonde. "Sorry about that Nijima dude."

"Eh?" Miu blinked as the Ninth fist simply turned around and walked away. He wanted nothing to do with this plan. "Oh... No problem." She mumbled to herself once she was all alone.

Tyler shook his head as he gained some good distance and ripped his Ragnarok gloves from his hand and reached into his pocket. He plucked his joint that he planned on saving for later and lit it up without caring who saw him, inhaling that smoke.

He just wanted to fight.

That was it.

He didn't want to go around kidnapping people. Now this.

The fact that the higher fists actually gave their consent for this was even worse. Tactics were tactics to them as long as they furthered their own plans and upheld their reputation.

Tyler couldn't believe himself as he finally ripped off his hood and freed his hair. It was weird to think of himself as feeling bad for his fighting. Hadn't happened before and yet as he thought about it on his way home he couldn't help but feel like he should have felt bad many times before.

Meanwhile, Miu rushed around the corner of the warehouses in a hurry to find Kenichi and in extension Nijima, but she was utterly shocked to find that every single ship was gone and Kenichi stood beside a defeated Siegfried lying face up on the ground.

"Wow!" She rushed up to his side and checked the enemy's pulse and sighed with relief to find that it was still there. "Great job, Kenichi!" She beamed.

"Hey thanks, Miu." He smiled before looking off at the ocean with a glum look of defeat about him. "Still this is really horrible. We need to call the company as soon as possible."

"Good thinking." She agreed with a nod.

"What about you? Did you catch up to Loki at all?" He asked.

Miu simply shook her head with a distracted look upon her face. "No. I actually got confronted by that guy you told me about, the Ninth fist."

"Achilles." Kenichi mumbled under his breath before flaring his teeth with anger. "Did he hurt you?"

"N-no." She paused thinking of the fist's strange behavior. "In fact he hardly seemed like he wanted to fight. He just up and walked away."

"What?! Really?" Kenichi chuckled.

"Yeah and he even asked for my consent to fight him and apologized for Nijima." She shook her head and couldn't stop thinking about him. "What a funny guy."

"Yeah sounds like it." Kenichi breathed with a raised eyebrow before shrugging his shoulders. "It was probably all a ploy. Loki did get away after all. I wouldn't trust him too much."

"Yeah." She nodded with a bright smile. "You're right." Then she looked down at Sieg. "Do you think he's going to be alright?"

"I used a pretty good punch on him, but he's probably just unconscious." Kenichi replied before standing up and picking the fifth fist up over a shoulder. "But to be safe I'd better at least put him inside."

* * *

Tyler opened his door and groaned as he smoked the very last of his joint and breathed it out the door. It was midnight and all the lights were off, but he didn't even feel like going to bed. He simply threw his jacket onto the couch and flopped down after it, kicking his shoes off.

He didn't want to do anything. He helped a kidnapper get away.

Even for a guy like him, that was cold.

The thought of that kid being taken to god knows where across the world. Probably scared and alone, unable to get home.

Fuck's sake that was dark.

Tyler couldn't take it. He needed to distract himself so he immediately burst to his feet and went straight to his room, grabbing not only his entire little box full of all the weed he had as well as his small bong and he shut his door to light up alone.

He ended up smoking the entire box full before he passed out.

Only for the next morning to be even worse.

* * *

 **Chapter end.**

 **Alright currently we're tied for the romantic role pole. It's a tie between Shigure and Renka who both have two votes each. The next vote will determine the winner and that person will be the romantic role for the story. You all know the choices.**

 **Any thoughts on this chapter? Feel free to post them into the comments below and have a great day.**


	6. Foot Down

**Chapter 6**

 **Foot Down**

Garfield Winters stood outside his son's bedroom door watching the smoke rise from underneath the doorway. Much more than there usually was. Maybe Tyler was already awake, but even so, he was smoking considerably more than he usually was, which was odd. Perhaps problematic if the boy was being irresponsible.

He peered at the door as more and more of the smoke rose from the closed door and he shook his head and barged right in. He stopped upon being bombarded with the smell and smoke. Then he saw it. Tyler passed out on his bed, bong spilled all over the floor and the boy still fully dressed in his clothes and a red hoodie. It seemed as if he had been smoking up quite heavily which was pretty common for him as Garfield knew.

He let out a sigh and shook his head with a roll of the eyes upon seeing his son, not asleep, but rather passed out and already quite late for school. The former Marine made nothing of it until he looked to the base of the bed and spotted his little box that Tyler kept his stash in, wide open and completely empty. That was two whole grams of pot completely smoked up by that one teenager.

Garfield's jaw hung wide open as he looked into the box then peered at his son with a look of disbelief. The boy's face had several huge bruises all over them. No coincidence. Karate was never that hard on him and Tyler had been winning all this time so he was too good to just be beaten like that all of a sudden.

Was he mugged?

Finally the father shook his head and dropped the box, circling his bed to shake his son awake.

"Tyler." He mumbled as he shook the blonde's shoulder. All he got was a slight sleepy moan. Garfield stood up and simply kicked the mattress. "Tyler! Get up!"

"Huh?" His son mumbled as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"What the hell is this?" Garfield asked, holding up the box and pointing it at the bong.

Tyler looked through one eye as he looked at the bong. "Don't act like you don't know, alright?" He shook his head then shrugged. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is you came home late as hell last night, you're beaten to shit, and." He held up the box before throwing it into his son's lap with a sneer. "You smoked two whole ounces of pot at one time."

"Look, Karate club was tough-"

"Don't!" Garfield shouted through his teeth. "Save it, because I know that club never keeps you that late... Ever! Now I want an honest to god answer, right now!"

Tyler let out a sigh as he thought up a quick answer. "Look, maybe I had some problems with some senior guys down at the dojo, alright?" He threw his arms out to the side like it was no big deal.

"Problems? What problems, huh?"

Tyler shook his head again and looked up at his father. "They wanted to hang out with me, so I did. When I did they picked a fight, since they were my Senpai I had to go along with them."

"You helped them bully someone?" Garfield peered at him with a sneer of shock and anger.

"Alright, look dad-" Tyler blinked as he began but was cut off.

"You junkie piece of shit!" Garfield sneered at him and leaned over. "How could you even think of surrendering to those little shits? Huh?!" Tyler blinked with surprise at his dad whom he usually got along with for the most part, being so furious with him. Then again he didn't blame him. "You have strength, if you see somebody pulling some shit and hurting somebody you have a responsibility to finish them... End of story!" He sneered at Tyler who wasn't even looking up at him.

"It's not like I wanted to." Tyler argued and shook his head. "It's just that they're higher up than me. Higher belt levels. Better fighters, mostly and they know my weaknesses."

Garfield peered at him and shrugged. "So?"

"So? If I tried to be a hero they kick my ass into the pavement."

"Better you get your ass kicked every day than be someone's little bitch!" His father snarled at him and shook his head before taking a few steps back. He felt his back hit Tyler's dresser before sliding down to the floor and hanging his head between his knees with Tyler looking away, shaking his head. Garfield let out a sigh and looked the same way. "You're so unlike how I thought you were."

"Look I fight, okay? I can wipe the floor with most guys I get paired up with, okay? But these guys," he paused and shook his head. "They look after me, help me."

"And what? That's some form of buying you out?" Garfield shook his head and looked off, letting out another sigh. "Tyler all this time I had this image of you as this sort of wild boy. Somebody who loved what he did and nothing else. All this time I thought you were fearless that you couldn't be scared into submission like this. When I was in the military I had a mutual understanding with everyone! That if they pulled some evil bullshit then I was going to shove my foot up their ass until the sweat on my knee quenched their thirst. I did that because I knew what I thought was right and I thought you were the same way..." He shook his head before standing up and looking away. "I didn't think you were somebody's pawn."

Tyler blinked at him with a look of disbelief. "Okay, so what? You want me to march down to that dojo and start fighting them? Get my ass kicked by everyone else in the club?"

"I want you to at least try!" He shouted back, now standing over him speaking with venom through his teeth. "You've already given up because you let some punks intimidate you." Tyler opened his mouth to argue but Garfield simply interrupted. "You know it's true! You bring home karate trophies and your teacher loves you. Those little shits should be intimidated by you. You just need to apply yourself!"

He rolled his eyes and immediately shot up to his feet, storming past his father and out the door. "I'm leaving."

"You forgot your uniform!" Garfield shouted back at him.

Tyler burst right out the front door, already slipping on his Ragnarok gloves after simply ignoring his father's warning. He was not going to school today. He was going straight back to work.

Haruo Nijima.

Who knew where he'd end up?

Loki certainly didn't care, and Tyler actually helped that asshole get away with it. Now it just felt like it was his fault instead of Loki.

Guilt.

It was never something he thought he'd be faced with, but Tyler wasn't a heartless bastard. He knew what was right and what was wrong. It was the reason he didn't fight just anybody that he was put up against, no matter how much he wanted a good fight. He wanted consent, to know that it was a fight rather than simply jumping somebody.

Kidnapping was never in the job description and he knew all too well that Ragnarok was not a squad of death dealers. They weren't in it to turn a profit from anything like a normal gang, it was all about martial arts.

How could Odin even approve of this?

* * *

Tyler threw up his hood as he stormed around the corner and headed straight for the Nine fists' hideout. The guard at the door waved at him to greet the new fist, but he was simply shoved aside by the red hood. He burst through the double doors and stepped into the entrance room.

"ODIN!" He shouted, causing the hallways and rooms to echo with his voice.

"Woah, sir calm down!" One of the guards waved from the other side of the door with a nervous gulp.

Tyler looked back and glared at the lackey. "Where is he?"

"Meeting room." He pointed, too afraid to hold up the ninth fist any longer, but by the time he had raised his hand Achilles was already gone.

The red hood stormed through the halls, breezing past any lackeys until he reached the door to the meeting room and stopped himself for a brief moment. He tensed up his arm muscles the way he always did before a sparring match in the Karate club and straightened out his hoodie with a deep breath. Then he casually walked through the doors and immediately glanced over at the three of the nine fists sitting around a poker table with each other.

Odin, Loki, and Berserker.

"I fold." Odin replied with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair and adjusted his glasses.

Loki snickered and he and Berserker both showed their hands. "Straight of hearts." The fourth fist grinned victoriously as he scooped up the pile of chips in the middle of the floor and they all handed their cards over to Berserker. "Care to join us, Achilles?"

Tyler chuckled and shook his head as he rounded the table. "Me? Fuck no, I don't like gambling. Too... intense."

"Intense?" Loki laughed and snapped his head up at him. "You're telling me that _this_ is more intense than all that fighting you love so much?"

"Card games." He shrugged and shook his head. "Something about not knowing what I'm gonna get next kinda puts me on edge. Anyway," He turned to Odin. "I wanted to talk about last night."

"Which part?" The first fist replied coolly as he took his two cards. "The part where you helped Loki or the part where you illegally fought Thor?"

"Hey, Thor was okay with it." Achilles pointed at his leader in denial. "There's nothing wrong with a little friendly competition every now and again."

Odin paused as he threw in a single chip and calmly nodded. "Fair enough. So it's about the other thing then?"

He looked from Odin to Loki and then back again and nodded. "Yes." He looked down at the fourth fist who wasn't paying him any attention. "Loki, kidnapping? Sending them on a ship to god knows where? And a high schooler? What in the shitting hell is wrong with you, huh?"

"What's wrong, Achilles? Do you not like my strategies with dealing with pests? Or are you secretly working with them?" The fourth fist grinned daringly up at the newest fist.

"No, I don't like your little strategies at all." He replied taking a step over the fourth fist. "Imagine someone his age ending up in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back to his parents. Pretty fucked up, huh?"

"So you don't find it morally right then?" Odin interrupted and looked up at the hooded fist.

"Yes. Exactly." He nodded before taking a pause. Loki hadn't even looked at him this whole time and Berserker was just doing the aloof Berserker thing with his bubble gum like always. "I mean." He shrugged. "We dwarf the shit out of them in numbers. And skill?" he waved. "Forget it."

The first fist shook his head. "We've tried that already. Hermit couldn't do it. Valkyrie's squad couldn't do it. And most recently Siegfried couldn't do it. That's three guys down. I don't think you're any better than them, so it's not like you can pull it off."

Achilles shook his head then turned to his purple haired leader. "Try me."

"Sorry." Loki snickered as he placed a sizable bet. "Already called dibs."

"I could give a fuck what you call." He snapped and stood over him. "I'm not gonna let you pull some fucked up shit like you did last night, and you can forget it if you think I'm gonna help you again." Loki's grin disappeared and turned to a frown of distaste as he tried to decide what he'd do from here. Tyler leaned down into Loki's ear. "Don't cross me, Loki." There was no reply from anybody for a few seconds more until Achilles stood up. "I'll do it." Odin's eyebrows raised at this as the ninth fist looked at him with a nod. "You want the Shimpaku dealt with so damn bad? Fine. I'll do it. No matter who gets in my way."

A snap of bubblegum sounded, grabbing Tyler's attention as he looked toward Berserker who merely glanced up at him. "We all know your weakness." The second fist sighed with disinterest. "That Kenichi kid just so happens to have your weakness as his strength."

"So he's strong." He nodded before giving a shrug. "Whatever I'll work around it."

"Whatever you say, Achilles." Odin interrupted with a loud sigh as he pushed his glasses up. "Just remember one thing, you're not to be fighting any of your fellow members. So if this causes you to fight with Loki then there will be consequences next time. Got it?"

"Yeah yeah." He replied as he turned around and started toward the door. "I've heard it all before." Then he waved over his shoulder. "See ya later, guys. Stop cheating, Loki."

The fourth fist's eyes widened as he looked up, only to see the other two fists staring at him with a pressing look. Then he merely let out a sigh as he pulled his spare card out of his sleeve and handed it to Berserker.

"Right. I think that's enough dealing for you for a while." Odin nodded as he threw down his cards. "I fold."

* * *

 _ **Alrighty another chapter done!**_

 _ **I'm very sorry that there was absolutely zero action in this chapter, but hey I kinda like the talky talky bits of things sometimes. Especially when I have to read through it. Still I do think that I deliver the action better than I deliver exposition.**_

 _ **So the romantic votes are in! And the results are!**_

 ** _Renka: 2_**

 ** _Shigure: 3_**

 ** _I just can't seem to escape our epic sexcipades, can I, Shigure? Oh well the readers want more of you so I will deliver. The winner of our romantic pole is Shigure. She will henceforth be counted as the love interest for this story._**

 ** _Thank you all for voting, whoever actually voted. And if you read this story don't forget to leave your review in that little box. I love feedback. Have a great day!_**


	7. The Right Time

**Chapter 7**

 **The Right Time**

Tyler held his left hand behind his back as he focused on his latest work for art class. The topic was non-existent, just a flurry of bright ,exaggerated colors and patterns so far as the background. The next thing to go on would be some sort of item, character, or place, or some combination of the three.

It didn't have to make sense.

In fact that was the point.

Just putting down whatever it was that came to mind.

"Tyler-senpai!" Spoke one of his female class mates as she jumped out of no where and startled him, causing him to make a huge red streak across the canvas. The girl gasped and covered her mouth as Tyler examined the mistake. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!"

He simply chuckled at that and waved his paint brush at her. "Eh, don't sweat it. All mistakes are welcome additions."

The girl giggled and took a step in closer to peek at his work. "So, uhm, what exactly is this?"

"Don't ask don't tell." He replied with a sideways grin and gave a shrug as he pointed his brush at the background. "It's based on altered states, so it's pretty much me painting whatever the hell my brain thinks of first."

She nodded with a slight chuckled. "Ah, I see. So it's pretty much the same concept as the fifty last times you've done it?"

Tyler paused and couldn't help but smile at the teasing and pointed at this work again. "Does that look the same to you, missy?" He joked. "Besides, it's my favorite topic endless supply of possibilities and I don't have to go through the hassle of trying to make it look realistic."

"You know what that reminds me of?" She chuckled as she pointed at his work. Tyler simply raised his eyebrows at the question. "Some of those old sixties rock records, you know like Jimmi Hendrix?"

"You calling me a hippy?" He grinned, causing the girl to flush and back away bashfully.

"Mayyyybe." She teased as she bounced on her toes.

The blonde male's eyebrows raised as he saw the door open and a familiar comrade of his stepped through the door and stood there right behind the girl he was flirting with. A few seconds passed and the girl looked back and jumped with fright, taking several steps back.

"K-Kisara N-Nanjo?" She whimpered.

Tyler rolled his eyes and shook his head, getting back to his work. "Party pooper." He muttered as Valkyrie shooed the girl away and approached Tyler.

"So an artist, huh? That's a shocker." The red head grinned as she approached him with a hand on her hip.

"Nah, this is actually my first time." He replied with a straight face.

"Nice try, it's the middle of the school year." She waved it off before tapping him on the arm. "Anyway, I heard what happened yesterday."

"I have no idea what you're talking about , I'm just a lonely little artist, girl." He replied as he filled in more color and patterns.

"Whatever you say." Valkyrie sighed before turning around to face the door. "I gotta say I actually kinda admire the way you told Loki what's what. That creep does go to far sometimes. The others are wondering when you're planning on dealing with that Shirahama kid?"

Tyler stopped and looked up toward the ceiling with a roll of the eyes. "I'll do it in Hawaiian time."

The girl grinned testingly. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

"It means I'll do it when I do it." He turned his head with a grin before getting back to work. "Besides it's not like he's on the offensive. It's always us going after him. I've got plenty of time."

"Whatever you say." She replied with a shrug as she started toward the door. "But you better hurry up, though. If you take too long the others will do it themselves."

"Thanks cutie-booty." He waved without looking. "Keep it round for me."

Valkyrie stomped away with an annoyed and slightly embarrassed grumble. "Fuck off, you prick."

Tyler chuckled to himself as he finished off the last pattern on the background before dipping his brush into his water to let the picture dry. Though he merely stared off into space as he kept on thinking about what Valkyrie was just talking about.

Kenichi.

The guy defeated Hermit and Siegfried an apparently dealt with Tsuji a few times too. He must have been tough as hell, but in Tyler's mind it was better for him to get beaten by the kid than let Loki pull some messed up stuff like he did the last time. The guy was more crooked than a corkscrew and it bugged the hell out of Tyler to no end. It was surprising too, that he would end up having such a huge moral issue like this. Even Tyler never thought that would ever happen.

But it was.

That was the bad part about having feelings mixed in with fights, it sucked the fun and anticipation right out of it.

After a few minutes of thinking it over the bell rang and Tyler was free to leave the school. Though as fate would have it, who should he run into on his way out, but Kenichi Shirahama himself. He was walking with that Miu Furinji chick, whom he still owed a fight. He could easily just be chill about it and ask Kenichi for a fight, probably wouldn't get too much trouble from Miu.

Still.

Now?

So soon?

Who knew what that guy must have been feeling with his friend kidnapped by Loki, and having Tyler himself pretty much help out. He squeezed the strap of his backpack as he saw the pair pass him and he had a temptation to slip into a hiding spot and change into his gear.

Then as the laughing pair passed by him Kenichi smiled at him and waved.

Tyler kept forgetting that he didn't know his secret identity, but Kenichi still waved as if they knew each other. That kind bastard got Tyler right in the feels, so he couldn't do it. He loosened his grip on his book-bag and waved back to his unsuspecting enemy.

Kenichi could wait.

* * *

The next day at school came and Tyler was still contemplating when he would confront Kenichi. After school? Before school? Follow him home?

He couldn't bring himself to do it. The thought of Kenichi's bitterness filled his head and Tyler felt utterly bad for wanting to pour salt into an open wound like that. So he ended up putting it off twice that same day when he saw Kenichi. Once before school and once again during lunch.

As Tyler was on his way to his last class, art, he stopped in front of a doorway and peeked his head in to see a surprising sight.

Nijima, Kenichi, Takeda, and Ukita.

Nijima was back.

And so fast too?

That was a relief, but that didn't change what Tyler had done. Still with his friend back, it didn't seem like Kenichi would be in too bad of a mood. That kind of lifted Tyler's spirits a bit and upon seeing the two of them huddled around the computer together he cracked a smile and nodded.

"Soon, little homey. Soon." He muttered to himself before getting on his way again.

Suddenly Tyler felt much better about fighting Kenichi, and his mind raced with ways to confront Kenichi and things to say. Those thoughts only lasted a few seconds, however as the door to the same room that Kenichi was in burst open and the four Shimpaku members raced down the hallways with Kenichi leading at an almost Olympic speed.

The ninth fist blinked with surprise and grinned as he walked back to the room. The other three trailed far behind Kenichi and soon disappeared around the corner.

"Hmm." He chuckled to himself and turned.

He stilled upon seeing that the screen was still on. They hadn't even bothered to turn it off. There was a picture still popped up on it too. Some little girl. Tyler peered at the picture as he entered the room and leaned over the computer to take control of the mouse. The girl was tied up with two people holding her. Tyler sneered at the screen as he clicked the back arrow to read the message it came with.

He only had to read one sentence to figure out what was going on.

Loki was going on.

Tyler red further before simply throwing down the mouse and backing away with a shake of the head. "Fucking serious right now?" He grumbled to himself. He did a double take at the door before pausing to read the location again.

He nodded to himself before storming out the door and leaving the campus all together. He stopped briefly to change before taking a sprint toward the location. Any other day he would be dying on the side of the road by getting so tired so fast. However, his lack of conditioning was halted by the rush of adrenaline he got at his urge to chew Loki out or even worse.

Kenichi already had a huge head start and would likely fall into the trap long before he got there, but Achilles was confident that as soon as he got there things would definitely go a different way.

All that time Tyler was thinking, scheming. Thinking of what he was gonna say and what he was gonna do. Loki heard his warning loud and clear the last time and yet the guy couldn't have cared less about it. He crossed Tyler without even thinking twice. Or at the very least, Tyler was never meant to know about this.

Definitely.

So he was definitely at an advantage for ruining Loki's plan.

Kidnapped his sister.

A motherfucking little girl.

There was no where lower than where Loki was going right about now.

* * *

The old church finally came into view over the houses, causing Tyler to slow down to a fast walk and hold his hands over his head trying to catch his breath. He panted the whole three blocks it took to get to the church before he was better. He stopped to take in the scene from the broken gate. Miu, Takeda, Ukita, and Nijima watched from the gate. Hermit watched from the base of the church. Kenichi and Loki fought in front of Hermit. And above everything a girl in camouflage clothes held the little girl hostage with a knife.

It was the very definition of a mess.

Tyler looked up to the left upon catching a glimpse of white. He saw two men sitting up there watching.

He rolled his eyes and approached the tree before snapping his fingers to grab their attention. "Hey." He whispered.

One of them looked down at him. "What, kid?"

"Cops, maybe?" Tyler held out his arms. "Instead of sitting there with your thumbs up your asses?"

"What did you say?!" The man shouted before his friend patted him on the shoulder.

"Now now. I understand where he's coming from." The man replied before looking down at the red hood. "Unfortunately the boy fighting is our disciple and as masters we cannot interfere with our disciple's fights."

"Fucking serious?" Tyler peered up at them before turning around an throwing up his arms. "Unbelievable."

He shook his head as he started toward the chapel again. The four other teens all gasped as the ninth fist slipped in between him, none of them even bothered to speak and instead just watched his actions.

Hermit looked up from under his hood. "What the hell is he doing here?"

Tyler approached the two fighters as Kenichi kicked Loki backwards. He stopped the boy before he could continue the fight and placed a hand on his shoulder. Kenichi looked back with surprise. "Stand back."

Loki turned around and stilled upon seeing the red hood there with his arms folded. "You?! How did you-"

"Shut the fuck up." Tyler grumbled as he shook his head. "I don't wanna head it. You crossed me." He pointed at him with a sneer. "I warned you to back the fuck off after that last little stunt and you crossed me."

"Great, just what I needed." Loki said through his teeth before taking a step forward.

"And you!" Achilles turned to look at the sixth fist. "You're overly serious and you're an asshole, but I never thought you're help this dickbag along with this."

"Shut it, Achilles. You're outnumbered and I have an executive order from the great sage fist."

"The great who what now?" He raised a brow.

"Oh that's right, you don't even know who the real leader of Ragnarok is do you?"

"Nope, can't say I do."

Loki snickered. "That's how utterly pathetic you are, Achilles."

Tyler shook his head and sighed with annoyance. He should just deck this guy right here and now and get it over-with. At this point he didn't care what number had on his glove, Loki needed to go down.

"I don't care who told you to do what, Loki." Tyler sneered at him and pointed in his face. "Kidnapping people is fucked up as it is, but kidnapping a little girl? You've gone too far."

"What are you gonna do about it then?" He smiled widely at the red hood, everybody still watching.

"I'm gonna do one of two things." Achilles nodded as he held up his fingers. "One I'll ask you politely once to tell that dumb bitch up there to let the little girl go. Or two I'll beat your ass into the ground and do it myself." The two fists locked eyes and stared each other down. "Come on, Loki. Do it the easy way."

"I can expose who you are, Achilles." Loki snickered widely. Tyler peered at him, having very little effect on the threat. "I tell everybody who Achilles really is, then everybody becomes afraid of you. You'll be ruined."

"Oh I don't know, Loki." He shook his head. "I'm a pretty nice guy either way. You'll have to do better than that."

Hermit watched the two counter each other's monologue back and fourth for a few seconds longer before turning around and jumping up to where Loki's female goon held the girl hostage. He landed perfectly and grabbed the knife from the lackey's wrist, driving it into his own shoulder.

"If you're gonna use that, then you better use it right." Hermit sneered before back handing the goon against the wall. He pulled the knife and looked down at the pair still arguing. "Achilles!" Now everyone looked up at Hermit as he snapped the blade of the knife from the handle. "Kill Loki, I'm done with Ragnarok!"

"Well if you insist." He shrugged in the middle of Loki cursing at Hermit.

Before the fourth fist had time to react Achilles jumped up and heel kicked Loki in the nose, causing it to bleed. The fourth fist stumbled back and wiped the blood from his nose and looked at it.

He bared his teeth at the red hood. "Achilles, you bastard. That's it! You're finished!"

Suddenly Loki punched at Tyler's stomach, but it was futile in a second as he locked his knees in and elbows with a defensive stance that he learned from the Karate club. The punch didn't do much damage and Achilles quickly countered with a quick jab followed by a roundhouse kick to Loki's rib. The fourth fist stumble to the side and failed to react before Achilles tackled him to the ground and sat on his chest landing punch after punch to Loki's face followed by a few elbows.

Loki grabbed Tyler's arms and held them back before he could be hit any more. "Is that all you've got, Achilles?"

"That's enough!"

A voice suddenly stilled everyone and drew their attention to the right where none other than Odin stood before them. The first fist adjusted his glasses as he stared at his three underlings, two of which seemed to be against Loki.

"You heard me, that's enough." Odin waved at the three of them. "Let's get out of here."

"What's he doing here?" Loki cursed under his breath as Achilles got off of him.

Odin approached them with a casual stride but all Tyler could think about was what the first fist was going to say about him fighting a fellow member of Ragnarok again. However, much to everyone's surprise he looked at Kenichi first and smiled. "It's good to see you again, Kenichi. Glad to see you haven't changed." Achilles and Kenichi reacted the same way with raised eyebrows. "You don't remember me, huh? That's okay I'm sure the promise we made will be fulfilled soon enough."

"Alrighty then." Achilles mumbled under his breath.

"Come on, Loki." He turned around.

"No way!" Loki refused and turned toward Achilles in his stance. "You don't understand how serious I am! I'm not leaving until I beat the crap out of these punks."

There was a pause before the first fist replied. "I'll forgive you this once for using the great sage fist's name for your own personal gain, but I should warn you if you break the rules again." A flash of white waved from Odin's arm and suddenly he was holding Loki's mesh goggles revealing the fourth fist's long eyelashes. Then in no time the goggles were crushed with Odin's bare hand. "Achilles!"

Tyler's eyes widened and he pursed his lips ready to face up to Odin. "Yeah?"

"You've already had your second chance and you wasted it on something like this."

"No no no." Tyler pointed at him as he took a few steps. "I wasn't gonna sit by and let this happen, forget it."

"Then you should have come to me, right?" Odin replied and was only greeted by silence. The first fist simply nodded. "Then we understand each other. Your punishment for breaking the rules will come soon enough."

"So what? Am I out of the gang now?" He held out his arms.

"No. You still have a chance to learn your place. Only one. Good day." Odin waved. "To you and to Hermit."

The two other fists disappeared while Hermit jumped down with Kenichi's sister, letting her run up to her brother to give him a hug. Tyler smirked at this and gave a slight nod to Hermit, which wasn't returned. Kenichi whined about his bruises while his sister insisted on squeezing further and Achilles couldn't help but smile at their cute little bond.

Though that was short lived once Kenichi tried to thank them. "Thank you." He looked up with a bright smile. "Thank you both."

Tyler merely waved casually. "Don't sweat it."

"Yeah well don't get confused, Shirahama." Hermit replied, standing over the boy. "The fight is still on."

Achilles rolled his eyes as he made to leave. He brushed past the other two before stopping at Miu and giving her a nod, to which it was returned. Then finally he stopped at the tree and looked up.

"Hey, thanks for nothing." He nodded up at the two men still sitting there.

The man in white waved down at him with a kind smile. "You're welcome."

Tyler smirked at that before the other man crushed a beer can. "So kid, that was a pretty nice Karate move you did back there."

"Thanks, I'm a gifted amateur." He smirked as he watched Kenichi's high stakes fight with Hermit commence.

"Yeah but at least you practice. That's worth something, you know." The man nodded through his chugging.

Tyler nodded with a slight smile as he was distracted by Kenichi's fight with Hermit. It was the first time that he ever saw Kenichi fight at all and the guy was good. Despite being short and skinny, the guy was pretty damn good and so was Hermit. They both looked as though they could take care of Tyler with a few well placed hits which was saying something for the guy who usually never admitted this even to himself.

He couldn't lie about this though. Kenichi was on a whole other level.

"Damn." He breathed out with a nod then looked up at the men. "You guys don't play around with him, do you?"

"No we don't. Haha!" laughed the man in white who looked down at the American with a smile. "At our dojo it is guaranteed for every student to become strong."

"Yeah so long as they survive." The other man laughed.

Tyler blinked with a smile.

Survive.

That must have been some hard core training Kenichi had himself with these guys. Tyler blinked and looked up at them in disbelief. "Are you guys bullshitting me?"

"Look for yourself." The alcoholic man pointed at the fight where the two combatants punched and kicked with the type of speed, strength, and grace that Tyler had only imagined doing.

He paused and tried to imagine what this kid had to go through to get that kind of ability. Which gave him an impulsive idea. He looked back up toward the men again. "Actually I'd like to do that some time. Do you think I can stop by and see this dojo of yours?"

"Well seeing as you found our hiding spot so easily I'd say you're worthy." The man in white smiled before looking at his partner. "What do you think, Sakaki?"

"Hey more kids to beat up, that's fine by me." Sakaki shrugged.

"Great. It'll probably be easier for you to find it if I just give you the address to my clinic." The man replied, flicking a small card into Tyler's hands. "It's right next door. Stop by any time."

Tyler looked down and read the address. He paused and thought about what he would do and say to them. What would be his excuse for finding it? Or would he just go out and admit that he was Achilles.

He couldn't decide so he merely waved at them and backed away. "Thanks... I might just do that."

"Excellent." The man nodded down at him as Tyler backed out of the gate and turned around on his way.

Akisame Koetsuji.

The guy had a clinic and also taught Kenichi how to fight. He seemed to be the whole package. Maybe visiting him would be a good idea. Even if he didn't end up training there, he'd be able to see more of just how powerful that Kenichi guy really was. Or maybe he could train there and get and edge on Kenichi in case they had to fight.

The possibilities were laid out before him.

* * *

 _ **Finally the moment that I've been waiting for! No more weak as fuck, Tyler!**_

 ** _I'm utterly glad that this chapter was so long, I was kinda disappointed with how short my last few chapters were._**

 ** _Also to answer the questions of a certain reviewer, who's name I cannot remember, I will give a short description of some thing you may not know about Tyler Winters. First off, yes the box of weed was about the size of a small Jewelry box, which is more than enough for pot. A gram is not very big, but it is for pot standards. And as it has been hinted at a few times before in the story, Tyler is a bit of a hippie and in turn he does have a relatively high tolerance for being high. As for his father? Well I loosely based Garfield Winters off Walter White, though that was not intentional at first it kinda just happened when I was writing after watching Breaking Bad, but yes former Marine being stern and no nonsense like he is. It kinda just fits, so I'm glad about the results._**

 ** _Anyway until next time._**


	8. In One's Own Hour of Need

**Chapter 8**

 **In One's Own Hour of Need**

Tyler lied out across his bed staring up at the ceiling as he contemplated whether or not he should smoke up or head over to that dojo. It seemed like a no brainer to do both, but there were always complications. He needed to keep a clear head at all times right about now, seeing as people would be coming to fight him at any moment, but the more time he went without smoking the more he seemed to be gaining a headache.

Not a big deal.

There was a clear solution to that problem.

Go to the dojo and train the same way that Kenichi did, that way he'd be able to handle Kenichi himself and fend off his Ragnarok comrades. That, however, was a very tight operation in itself. It was obvious that the masters at the dojo would know about his gang affiliations, but he had good intentions so maybe it wouldn't be a problem. A definite problem, though, would be in him training along side the enemy.

Kenichi was the enemy.

If the guys from Ragnarok found out about him betraying them like that it would be all over.

It would be them against him and for once, Tyler wasn't so sure if he could handle it.

He looked over at his tiny weed box, which he had only partially started to refill after smoking his whole stash.

He groaned to himself and rubbed his eyes before sitting up on the edge of his bed and pulling open the top drawer of his bedside table for his little wooden pipe, then he filled it and smoked up.

He had to.

He may have gotten extremely scatterbrained when high, but it took away the stress and evened gave him the impulsive thinking that he knew he needed right about now. Now was not the time for over complicating things and getting stressed out, he needed to take action like he had just done with Loki.

Maybe he did need to learn his place, but the more he thought about what his own gang was willing to do for their own interests, the more he wanted to go against them. Yet, a part of him didn't want to leave them all together. Maybe he could change them, talk some sense into them. Not all of them were completely irrational thinkers, there was Thor and Valkyrie for all he knew. Hermit and Siegfried were gone. Odin was the leader and as much of a mystery as Berserker. The only one he didn't know much about was Freya. She was quiet, perhaps even more so than Berserker, at least Tyler had gotten a chance to interact with Berserker.

This was something that would most likely take some time to deal with, but he was sure that he could calm everybody down. With two guys down the last thing that they needed was to loose more members to the Shimpaku alliance.

He wondered if Odin realized the same thing.

A knock sounded at the door and snapped him out of his deep thinking. He waved the smoke away and set his pipe down on his dresser. "Enter!" He called and caused his father to poke his head in.

Tyler simply stared at him and folded his arms in the awkward silence.

More yelling?

"Hey, Ty." Garfield waved with an awkward pace in front of the door. "Um, listen. I just wanted to apologize for what I said to you the other day." He began before stopping himself and waving his hand. "Well actually, I'm more sorry about calling you a junkie piece of shit. I should have never called you that, that's a horrible think to say to your own son." He explained as Tyler bobbed his head. "But I'm not apologizing for lecturing you." He pointed at him. "You fucking needed it."

"Did I?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Yes!" Garfield exclaimed and snatched Tyler's pipe from the dresser. "I don't know if it's the pot, or if you're just scared, but I want you to tell those assholes at school what's what! Become the alpha for fuck's sake! Don't just show your belly, at least take some bruises if you have to, but don't give up." Garfield held the pipe up to his lips and took a hit himself. "At least tell the teacher, those little fucks can get kicked out of school for that."

Tyler shook his head and shut his eyes. "No. That won't matter, because I'm not in the Karate club anymore."

His father exhaled and blew smoke out with a shrug as he passed the pipe to his son. "What, you quit?"

"No." Tyler sighed before taking another hit and exhaling quickly. "I've been out of the club for a few years now. I've been lying to you." Garfield peered at his son as he reached over to the other side of his bed and reached into the pockets of his red hoodie. He pulled out his Ragnarok gloves and tossed them over to his father. "You know what those are?"

"Course I do. They're fucking Ragnarok gloves." Garfield shook his head and took a long gaze down at the gloves in his hands. He shook the gloves at Tyler. "You're a fucking gang member?" He hissed.

"Yep. One of the Nine deadly fists too." Tyler nodded and took another hit. "That's what I've been spending my time with, but now things are going a little... dangerous."

"Well yeah, I'd fucking say so if you're in with that crowd." His father shook his head as he received the pipe and took his turn. Then he exhaled with a low grumble. "I fucking warned you, Ty. I told you we'd buy pot and that's it. No dealing, no robbing, nothing. That's how we stay safe. Now you've gone and joined some fucking gang?"

"I just fight for them." He argued with a shrug. "Plus I'm a high ranking member anyway, so not a lot of people will mess with me. They might now though. I kinda fucked up yesterday."

"Oh yeah? How so?"

Tyler paused and shook his head. He hesitated to tell his father, but he needed some guidance right about now and the man was pretty relaxed. "Well one of my other members asked me to help him the other day. He said that I'd be able to fight some kid who's apparently a badass fighter. That's the only reason I went, but it turns out that my team mate had kidnapped one of the kid's friends and sent him away on a container ship."

"So it wasn't bullying you were helping with." Garfield nodded with a long drag. "It was kidnapping. Oh that's _soooo_ much better."

"The day you and I argued was the day I went to them and told that asshole to back the hell off." He explained. "But he didn't listen, so yesterday I found out that he kidnapped someone again, this time the kid's little sister."

"You fucking shitting me?" His father peered at him. "Did you help him?"

"No. In fact I went straight there and beat the shit out of him."

Garfield laughed and patted his son on the back, passing the pipe back. "Haha! Now that's what I'm talking about!"

"Yeah." He chuckled and inhaled more smoke before setting the now empty pipe down on the table. "Well it wasn't all good things, I got two warnings not to fight my fellow members and that was my second time. So now I'm sitting here waiting for one of them to come and _teach me my place._ " He said with air quotes before lying back against his head board. "So there, that's my story, dad."

"Damn." His father shook his head and stared off into space. "My son the gang member, seeking justice." He chuckled and tapped him on the arm. "Well hell that's a hell of a lot better than the last story you gave me."

"A gang member's better than a school bully?" He smirked with skepticism.

"Look, Ty. Just because you're a gang member doesn't mean you're automatically a bad guy.. I mean you can't seriously believe that cop propaganda bullshit. However, if you're a bully then you really are a bad guy no matter fucking what. Anybody can be a bully, a criminal even those all mighty police men, in fact they're the worst bullies." He explained and stood up. "That's why I didn't reenlist in the Marines. That's why I never got all that into dealing, and that's why I'm now retired. I'm glad that you're at least bringing in some sensible thinking into your gang life."

Tyler chuckled and bobbed his head. "Yep I'd make all criminals proud."

Garfield chuckled and patted his son on the leg. "Look, I just hope you're done with this little gang. You don't need to be a part of that life. You can do better."

"Yeah, of course." He lied, not intending to quit. He just figured he was gonna have a small beef that would work itself out. Now that this was happening he was even more determined not to quit.

"Alright. Good." His father replied. "Good."

* * *

The next day at school he planned on not going to the dojo once again. He was still riding on the possibility of talking his higher up out of their nonsense. It wasn't until lunch time that thing went the other way. The bell had just rang and Tyler was on his way to the rest room before he went to eat. He went in, did his business then stepped up to the mirror to wash up.

That was right when three large thugs stepped into the small restroom and gathered behind him. Tyler fixed his hair in the mirror and looked at them with a smirk.

"You know there's two other sinks right here, right?" He smirked at them in the reflection.

One of them simply shook his head with a slight laugh. "The only thing that we're here to clean up is your attitude... Achilles."

Tyler paused and turned the water off before he turned around to face them with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I admire loyalty, Gentlemen. But I don't admire guys who blindly follow other people." He said as he leaned back against the sink with his arms folded. "Plus what a lame plan?" The three men glowered at him with their fists clenched as Tyler taunted them. "Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?"

"Did we not just say your name?" One of the thugs shrugged with a slight laugh.

"Ah so you do know who I am." He nodded and pointed at them. "So you know exactly who I am and what I'm capable of. You know exactly how many big ass mother fuckers I've beaten over the years, and yet... you still come after me." He bobbed his head with a smirk after seeing their cocky smiles drop like stones. The three of them looked at each other with uneasy looks and shrugged. Tyler shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows maybe I somehow I'll just magically not be a good fighter anymore, but frankly I don't believe in magic, so I'd say you're all fucked."

The shortest thug on the far right shook his head and leaned in to the one in the middle with a whisper. "Actually I don't know about this. Maybe we should go get some more guys."

Tyler pointed at him and nodded. "Your friend has a much better plan."

The thug in the middle looked at his cowering ally and shoved him away. "Get out of here." Then he turned to Achilles and took a step real close to him. The blonde American took a step closer and they got right in each others faces. The thug simply sneered. "Next time you won't be laughing."

The three thugs turned and walked right out of the bathroom, leaving Tyler alone. He cupped his hands. "I don't know! I got quite the sense of humor!"

There was no answer.

So great. He successfully psyched them out, big whoop. That didn't mean that they weren't coming back. It wouldn't be long before the other fists would come for him themselves. Then he'd be fucked.

There was no doubt about it, he wouldn't be able to intimidate his attackers for much longer, and eventually he'd be outmatched by someone. So there was only one solution. He needed to be able to fight better, longer, and harder.

Which meant one thing. He needed to nut up and take up the offer Kenichi's master gave him. It had to happen. He reached over to the side of the sink and pulled a couple paper towels and dried his hands off.

He'd go to the dojo right after school.

* * *

Tyler stared up at the large clinic and looked at the card. It was the right place, but he couldn't tell which building around was the dojo that the guy spoke of. There it was right in front of him, Akisame Koetsuji's bone setter clinic. It took a few seconds of looking for Tyler to figure out that the dojo that the man had spoke of was actually behind the huge stone wall right in front of him, after spotting a roof just barely over said wall.

However, finding the entrance to the dojo was an even bigger problem, since he couldn't find that either and he couldn't be bothered to look around any longer. So he figured barging inside like he owned the place was the best decision.

The blonde teen flipped his hair out of his face as he entered the building from the windy outside world. There were a couple people waiting in the lobby for their chance to be called and a single young woman sitting at the desk in front of the door who Tyler immediately made a bee line towards.

She looked up at him slowly as he leaned over the counter with an endearing smile causing her to stiffen slightly. "Hey, what's up?"

She paused briefly and stammered for her answer. "Oh, well I'm fine I guess. What, uh, what can I do for you today, sir?"

Tyler smirked at the clearly shy woman and took a quick glance down the hallway then back at her. "I'm actually here to see Mister Koetsuji. Personal business." He assured.

"Oh, well um, the doctor is busy at the moment." She replied, reaching under the desk for a clip board and sat it on top of the desk. "But what you could do for me is fill this out."

Tyler tapped the top of the desk and pushed away towards the hall way and shook his head. "That won't be necessary." He winked as he headed down the hallway.

"Hey!"

"I'm not here for medical treatment." He assured with a wave over the shoulder.

The woman hesitated to call the doctor to alert him of the teenager just walking in like that, but eventually decided to do so. By that time Tyler was already at the end of the hallway and had reached the stairs to climb it. He reached the second story an checked the rooms for one that was occupied. Sure enough the second room on the left was taken and in fact it seemed to be the only one.

Tyler pressed his ear to the door to hear Akisame working with a patient who sounded fairly familiar. "Alright now, hold still. We only have another one hundred and fifty more times then you're free to leave."

More screaming could be heard from the patient following several loud pops which made Tyler cringe and exhale at how it sounded.

"Poor guy." He muttered to himself as he raised his hand and knocked three times.

"Come in!" He called right as the telephone rang. Tyler opened the door to see the same man from the day before answering the phone with none other than Takeda the puncher sitting on the patient bed next to him. Akisame noted Tyler's presence as he held the phone up to his ear and gave a quick wave. "Hello?" There was a pause and Akisame looked up at Tyler once more and smiled. "Yes he's found me, it's fine. Yes it's okay, he can be here. Thank you."

The good doctor hung up the phone and looked up at the blonde teen with a smile. Tyler simply smirked, knowing that it was the secretary girl who had called. "Yeah I kinda just barged in here. I'm a good person, aren't I?" He uttered causing both the doctor and Takeda to chuckle in response.

"So what can't I do for you, today?" He asked, popping Takeda's shoulder again and again, getting shouts each time.

Tyler rubbed the back of his head, not wanting to blow his cover to an enemy of Ragnarok who was literally right there. He had bothered to keep his school uniform on, so he figured it was better not to mess it up. "Do you remember me?" He shrugged, unsure of how well his hood disguised him. "I'm the guy from yesterday." He then drew the card and showed it to him. "You gave me this."

Akisame paused from his work and glanced at the card and looked up at the American teen. "Ah yes! I almost couldn't recognize you!" He smiled and gave Takeda's shoulder another pop and scream. "Well I'm actually kind of busy right about now and I have a few more patients after this, but why don't you head next door and talk to our elder and I'll be down in a sec."

"Cool." Ty nodded as he backed away from the door way. "How exactly do I get in?" He pointed.

Akisame extended his arm at the wall behind him. "Go back down the steps and go through the door straight across the hall, that's our back entrance. It should be fine, just tell them that I sent you."

"Sure thing." He nodded then waved.

"Hey wait!" Takeda exclaimed, causing Tyler's heart to drop. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

Tyler poked his head back in the door ways and shrugged. "Er I think we have Math class together."

"Oh yeah!" Takeda snapped his finger and pointed at him. "You're the guy who's always drawing in your notebook!" He chuckled.

"And still surviving with a solid B minus." He snapped and pointed back with a joking smirk.

"Hey take it easy, man!" The boxer called after him as Tyler walked away.

The ninth fist took Koetsuji's advice and ended up between the clinic and the big wall with a small door in front of him. Tyler extended his hand with a nervous thump of his heart and opened the door to see a huge open yard with three huge buildings taking up a lot of the space.

His jaw dropped upon seeing the beautiful garden and awesome classic Japanese architecture. He took a few steps in and spun around and he was constantly looking up at the trees and high walls of the building closest to him. He looked to the open space in the center of the yard where a worn out punching post stood all alone and right in front of it stood a massive gate which Tyler would definitely be looking for next time he came here.

A loud scream of agony snapped Tyler right out of his admiration of the place. It came from the building nearest to him and almost sounded like a child was being chased around by an attacker.

The ninth fist raised an eyebrow and started towards the building.

Was that Kenichi screaming? Or was it some little kid who trained here?

He finally reached the building before he was startled into stiffness by a voice that came out of no where. "Well look what we have here, a visitor!"

Tyler jumped for a brief moment before he looked straight up to see a giant of an old man with long blonde hair and a matching long beard who wore a green kimono. The man was standing on the edge of the roof above him with his arms folded like the stereotypical badass that Tyler was kind of hoping to see.

"Uh yeah." Tyler blinked and took a step back. He pointed over his shoulder with a friendly smile. "I'm sorry to just barge in here, but that guy, Mister Koetsuji told me it was alright to come it."

The man jumped down from the roof like it was nothing and he still towered over Tyler, which made him instantly smile with how utterly enormous this guy was. Huge height, huge muscles, Tyler wouldn't have been surprised if the dude's junk was bringing in the ladies with it's size as well.

"Oh of course, of course. If Akisame says it's okay, then it's fine by me." The man waved it off with a friendly smile through his thick beard. "Well it's pleased to meet your I'm Hayato Furinji, the elder of this here dojo."

"Tyler Winters. Master of the noob school of not knowing martial arts." He nodded with a joking little bow. This earned him a hearty laugh from the old man who leaned back and patted him on the shoulder.

"Hahahaha! Well you certainly have quite the sense of humor, young man. So I take it you came here for the martial arts?"

Tyler dismissed the question. "I mean if it's okay with you, yeah I was wondering if you guys were taking students."

"Oh yes, of course! Of course! Welcome to Ryozanpaku!" Hayato nodded as he guided Tyler with a hand behind his back as they walked around the corner to the front of the building. "I'd ask you how exactly you found out about this dojo."

Tyler slipped off his converse at the wood platform just outside the door where the elder left his sandals. "Mister Koetsuji told me yesterday. I kinda figured that a class mate of mine trains here, because I saw him fighting yesterday."

Hayato stopped and turned around with his eyebrows raised. "Oh? And what did you think of our disciple?"

"Verrry surprised actually." Tyler nodded with a slight chuckle. "The guy don't look like much, but once I saw what he could do I figured it was worth giving a shot."

"Well it should be quite comfortable for you to have a classmate here with you." The man nodded as he waved Tyler along. "So what style were you hoping to learn?"

"Pfft, whatever I can," He paused and stopped in his tracks once he spotted another man standing in the dawn light in the middle of the yard. "Get."

He was almost as tall as Hayato and was equally as muscular, wearing only a pair of jeans and black leather boots. It only took Tyler a few seconds to figure out that it was that guy, Sakaki who was with Akisame the day before. Sakaki stood in a familiar stand between several new punching posts in the same karate stance that Tyler used, with his knees locked inward. The man breathed out with his muscles flexed for a few moments before punching outward and destroying every single post, each with single attacks like they were nothing.

Definite stereotypical badass. Tyler loved it and immediately smirked. "Pssh, ain't no way that's real wood." He scoffed with a wide grin, looking back at Hayato who simply held up a chunk of the post.

He knocked on the debris and shook his head. "Nope, pure lumber."

Tyler snatched the piece from his hand and felt it with disbelief. He shook his head. "Alright, I'm sold. What do you guys teach?"

"We teach various disciplines, though you're more than welcome to do a mixture of many if you like." Hayato explained before waving his hand. "However if you want my professional opinion, I think it would be better for us to evaluate your fighting style first and decide which teacher you'd be most suited for."

He nodded at that and pointed ahead. "Tally ho, then! I'm following the master!" He grinned widely in excitement.

"Hahaha! Excellent." The man laughed before stopping at one of the doorways and he opened the door for Tyler. "After you."

He stepped through the doorway and beamed at the sigh of Kenichi and Miu sparring together. This shit was damn near priceless information for Ragnarok, however Tyler looked at it as more of an investment and preferred to stay a while and learn more. Mostly for himself, not the gang.

Hayato stepped through the door way and immediately clapped his hands loudly, gathering everyone's attention. It left a painfully awkward silence as everyone in the room immediately stared at Tyler, the stranger. Even Kenichi and Miu didn't really recognize him all that well, which was good.

"Okay, Kenichi and Miu, how about you two take your sparring match outside! We have a guest!" He announced.

The two teenagers obediently headed towards the door with Miu having a little more pep in her step. "I'll fetch some tea!"

Kenichi stopped and gave Tyler a friendly smile, pointing at him in recollection. "Hey, aren't you that guy who waved at me the other day?"

"Was that you?" He laughed, playing dumb as he bobbed his head. "I thought you looked familiar."

"Yeah, good to see you again." The disciple smiled.

The elder looked down at Kenichi and gave him a stern stare. "Kenichi."

"Right. Sorry, Elder."

The door closed behind him and Tyler was left all alone in the room with Hayato along with three other strangers he hadn't yet met. There was a short guy with a Godzilla sized mustache and what looked like a much bigger version of the odd-job hat from James Bond. The second was yet another giant man, because apparently there weren't enough of those around, with spiky hair and a red bandana, as well as a child like stare on his face. Finally, and by far Tyler's favorite, a well endowed woman in a little pink kimono with a huge sword slung across her back.

Tyler had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling or flirting with her in front of the others.

 _"Talk about hot hot."_ He muttered in English instead of Japanese.

"Hey, Shio! Get in here for a moment!"

The door opened behind Tyler and the Karate guy entered from outside and scoffed at him. "Who's this guy?"

"This young man wants to train here." Hayato explained. "I believe this is the young man that Akisame was talking about yesterday evening."

"He was talking about me?" Tyler replied with a raised eyebrow.

"You're that kid who pulled off that Karate move yesterday?" Sakaki pointed at him with a slight smirk. "I thought Akisame was just joking about you coming here."

"Well at least I know you weren't _too_ wasted yesterday." The teen smirked at the man who grumbled.

"So you've seen him fight, Shio?" The elder turned to the drinker. "What did you think?"

"Well, kid I hate to break your heart." Sakaki sighed with a fake shrug. "But speed and decisiveness are about all you got. Your form is crap. You punches don't do a jack. But hey, at least you bothered to speak your mind, so that's something."

"Sounds to me like he has potential." Replied the short man with a slightly squeaky voice. "Not much, but some."

Tyler shook his head at their criticism as it kept coming. "Apa! It's okay, we'll train you to kill real good!" Bellowed the Thai looking man.

"Okay! Sweet!" The blonde smirked with a thumb held high.

"Yay! Hooray!"

"Alright, settle down, Apachai." Hayato chuckled before turning to Sakaki again. "Well from your point of view who do you think would be a suitable teacher for this young man?"

"Wait, I thought you said I had to fight."

"I change my mind." The elder dismissed.

"Hell if I know, I saw him pull off some super flashy jump kick. Maybe you should train him, Kensei." Sakaki threw up his arm.

"I'm not flashy." The shorter man grumbled before turning and looking up at Tyler with his hands behind his back. "But I think I can help this young man. After all I've trained ten thousand disciples before, so what's one more?"

"You flexing, gramps?" Tyler chuckled down at the man who didn't quite get the slang he used.

"I'm afraid not." He replied, taking a look at his unflexed limbs.

"Ah, I was also going to suggest you, Kensei." Came Akisame's voice from the door. Tyler looked up and gave the doctor a smiling nod as the man gathered behind the master. "I think his light hearted approach will go perfectly to you soft form."

"So wait, what exactly do you teach anyway?"

"Oh, forgive me, where are my manners." The man bowed. "I'm Kensei Ma and I teach Chinese Kenpo. You've already met Akisame, he teaches Jujitsu, an Sakaki who uses Karate." He pointed to the two others silently standing behind him. "That's Apachai Hopachai, he uses Muay Thai. And our lovely Shigure Kosaka, who handles weapons."

The woman's poker face was unrivaled as she calmly reached for her sword and peered at Kensei. "Don't call me... Lovely."

Tyler mentally snapped his fingers upon seeing her hostile reaction to the old man. Not the flirting type, it seemed. Then again it was the charm of an old guy with a mustache, against the charm of a much younger flirt. So he had not lost all hope yet.

"So wait, you're a master too?" Ty pointed at Shigure who sheathed her sword and silently nodded. He paused and blinked for a few seconds, impressed. "I'm liking this place more and more by the second." Then he turned to his Chinese master. "So what's the catch? How much do I have to pay?" He folded his arms at that.

Kensei took out a scroll from his sleeve at that. "Funny you should mention it, we have young Kenichi pay five thousand yen per month, so that seems fair for you too." He then sat down along with the other masters and laid the scroll out for their new applicant. "Just sign here, here, and here."

The door opened and Miu entered, serving tea for everybody with a wide and kind of adorable smile. Then she handed Tyler his tea. "There you go."

"Thanks." He winked at her before taking a quick sip.

"I forget, what's your name again? I'm pretty sure we have chemistry together." She pointed at him.

Tyler set down his tea. "Sorry. I'm Tyler. Tyler Winters." He rubbed the back of his head and looked at the other masters. "I kinda forgot to mention that, but you can just call me Ty if you want since you guys use the -san suffix, my dad calls me that."

"Very well, Ty." Kensei nodded as Tyler began signing the form and paid his fee.

That was that. He had officially signed up.

"So you're going to be training with Kensei, then?" Miu beamed.

Ty nodded, trying to avert his eyes from Miu's boobs swinging to and fro in front of him. "Yep, but I'm an open book. Will I have to pay extra for other training?"

"Hahaha! No that won't be necessary, in fact you'll probably end up doing so anyway." Hayato waved it off.

"Sweet. Gonna be the ultimate badass against my will, I like it!" He grinned as he stood up.

"Apapapa!" The Muay Thai user pumped his fists into the air. "Hooray! Disciple number two! Twice the teaching! Twice the ability to kill!"

Tyler was almost sure that the guy was joking about the whole killing part. Kensei stuffed the scroll into his sleeve and extended his hand toward the door. "Well then, shall we get started?"

"Fuck yeah." He nodded, before he paused and looked down at his school clothes. "Is there maybe a gi or something I can change into for this?"

"Sure. I'll go fetch you something that'll fit." Miu nodded and ran out the door. Tyler and his new master followed in tow.

The blonde male looked to his left to see Kenichi in the push up position, only to pick up speed once Akisame came out side. Tyler laughed at that and before long Miu had grabbed him a white Karate Gi for him to use.

"Thank you, Miu." Kensei nodded as he pointed toward another building on the other side of the dojo's massive gave. "Ty, you may change in there. Make it fast, if you please."

"You got it." He nodded as he trotted over to the building and in no time he was fully dressed.

He stuffed his school uniform into his book bag and left it near his shoes. He stared over at the master who waited patiently in front of the gate with his back turned. Awkwardly, Tyler approached him but as soon as he got there the man started walking without a word and Tyler ended up following him out the front gate.

Once they were in front of the entrance, Master Ma stopped and Tyler couldn't help but feel the awkwardness in the air rising. "Uh, Master Ma?" He began, but as soon as he did the man was suddenly holding a rope in his hands.

"For our first lesson you will be doing a few laps around the neighborhood while pulling me on this tire." The master began as he reached around the teen's waist and tied it.

"Seriously?" He chuckled and looked back at the gate. "Uh, I don't think I'll be able to go very fast. I hope you know that."

"Not to worry. We'll find a way. Normally I'd be doing something a bit different, but Akisame presented this as an excellent starter for a beginner like yourself." Kensei went to the other end of the rope and pulled a huge tire out to the middle of the street. Then he sat down on it, causing Tyler's tension to rise a bit. "Until we get a chance to know you better you will be doing some pretty boring stuff." He then raised his fist at him which was now clutching a whip. Ty's eyes widened at that. "Now. Lets get started then, shall we?"

Tyler didn't even question it now, he just wanted to get away from that whip, however long it was. So he immediately started going in one direction. He was left at a slow walk as he struggled to pull the master's weight, even if he was a little on the short side.

Tyler just chopped it up to being his own lack of muscle.

He passed by Akisame's clinic and kept going straight, straining to push his leg muscles at every step now. In his mind he wondered what the master was thinking at this point, since Kenichi was far shorter than him and yet Tyler was having this much of a struggle. The silence that Kensei had during this time was all the more unsettling to him and made him wonder if they all knew about him being associated with Ragnarok. After all the doctor had apparently told them about his fight so why not Ragnarok and his obvious connection to Loki?

Would they even care if they did know?

After all Akisame heard the whole argument himself and pretty much just pointed the way.

"Oh no, this won't do at all." Kensei said as Tyler slowly lugged the tire behind him. Tyler looked back as he kept going and saw the man's mustache curve inward as he smiled and nodded. "Now I see how Akisame gets Kenichi to run so fast."

Tyler saw the man lift up the whip again and he immediately started picking up speed, or at least trying to. He gradually began to go faster as he proudly reached a fast walking speed.

"That won't be necessary, Sifu." Ty grinned as he pushed for his life to try to at least reach jogging speed.

"Nonsense, you didn't come here to slack off, stupid boy." He insisted before unfurling the whip. The next moment was almost slow motion as the man cracked the whip forward and just barely touched the back of Tyler's Gi, but somehow didn't hit his skin.

"Oh shit!" He muttered to himself as his steps started to bounce and finally reached that jogging speed once Kensei was ready for a second crack.

"Come on!" Kensei shouted as he cracked the whip a few more times. "A strapping boy like you should be able to run at twice the speed of little Kenichi, right?!"

By this point Tyler had finally reached full sprinting without even thinking about it. He was more focused on staying out of the whip's reach as best as he could. His chest may have already felt like it was caving in, but he figured that was better than getting whip gashes across his back.

Tyler had to wonder how slaves must have felt with such dangerous things being hurled at them. At least he got to run, they were probably held down.

Despite this clear abuse, Tyler understood this crap. It was clearly meant to scare him into pushing himself to his limit. Much less subtle than wax on wax off, but it was effective. It was because of this that he swallowed his urge to whine and complain and just kept running, letting out his pain in his panting and grunting.

"How did you ever expect to fight before when you're this slow?!" Kensei shouted tauntingly. "I just don't understand!"

"I nev... ver thought... about... it." He swallowed and took a deep breath. "I never thought about my condition, if you must know!" He shouted back as he kept running. "I just did it!"

"Ah yes, I figured." The master replied, pointing the way. "Take a left up here!"

Tyler obeyed and continued on his way, trying to think of something to talk about. Talking somehow made running easier. Not by much, but every bit helped.

"So I must ask, boy." Kensei hollered. "To what end did you join our little dojo? We don't get a lot of students coming to us, you must've looked for us."

Tyler shook his head. "Actually." He panted, blowing a bead of sweat away from his eye. "I met the doctor out of a chance encounter. Well actually it's a little more complicated than that."

The master nodded and waved a hand. "Elaborate."

He paused for a moment, pursing his lips as he tried to think of what information to leave out and what was vague enough to talk about. "I was in a little predicament myself with some assholes. They're all trained martial artists so I know what they're capable of. I though I was gonna be beaten for sure."

"Then you found Kenichi?"

Tyler bobbed his head. "Sorta." He shook his head for a second after that, flipping his falling hair from his face. "I saw him fighting a couple guys. I didn't originally plan to come to you guys, but then I met mister Koetsuji shortly after."

"Ah I see. I see." He nodded and cracked the whip once more before pointing. "Left here!" Tyler grunted and obeyed as his heart rate lowered from the fear the whip caused. "Well done in seeking us out. Most people would run."

"Yeah well I tend to fight a lot." He explained. "Of course I don't have any beef with my opponents usually. I just do it for fun, but all this talk of _respect_ and _punishment_ is just killing the mood."

"Ah, that's very interesting!" He replied with a wide smile, before pointing. "One last left!"

Tyler obeyed and saw the long straight stretch with the massive wooden gate in sight. Before long he was able to stop and the rope was removed from his waist. Now that he was no longer moving his body had a chance to catch up with itself and he finally felt the caving in feeling in his chest. His lack of exercise had him feeling like a creature from the movie, Aliens was about to break out of his chest cavity.

While he panted to catch his breath he pointed at his new master. "So... What's... next?"

"Ah no whining for a break, I see." Kensei replied with a slight laugh. "A breath of fresh air! Come on." He waved as he held the massive gate open. "I'll show you. The hard stuff begins now."

Tyler breathed out. "Hard stuff..."

Every exercise after that was even more brutal and unforgiving than that one. That full sprinting with the whip thing was like a leisurely stroll compared to what Tyler had to do afterwards. Every pushup was done on his fingertips, rather than just his palms, and each set was meant to feel like torture. Each time he reached fifty, somehow, Master Ma told him to see if he could reach fifty more.

Each lunge step was weighted and Tyler was forced to do them extra slow just to make it harder than they already were. He held on for dear life to a pair of gripping jars, clenching his teeth at the difficulty after the unique push ups he got done doing.

After that he was forced to hold his arms straight out to the side while Kensei lifted hefty bags of sand attached to ropes from a pole above him onto the teen's arms. Each and every exercise felt unique in its own way and it went beyond any type of exercise that Tyler had ever heard of. No amount of bench presses or curls could even come close to what he went through. It was because of the fact that he had never heard of these things that he had a little more faith in its effectiveness somehow.

"My fucking arms are gonna be like lead pipes after this." He chuckled through his grunts.

Kensei smiled at that and nodded at the teen. "I'm holding you to that promise. I hope you know that."

"Dick." He breathed out with a smirk blending in with his cringing.

Each and every one felt like it was designed to target specific points of the body, which in all likelihood they were. After the sand bag routine he was forced to hang from the same pole and try and lift his legs all the way up to his hands.

"Sifu." He grunted as his legs flopped back down. "I don't have a lot of stretch."

"Yes, and not a lot of core strength either I see." He hummed before waving his hand. "I guess you'll have to do twice as many reps."

He didn't even have the focus to complain and simply let out a cringe as he lifted his legs about half way before he couldn't go any further.

The last exercise was rather straight forward, simple stretching in all directions. However, Tyler's stretching wasn't exactly good enough. Even though he could kick someone of his own height in the face, the Chinese Kenpo master insisted that it wasn't nearly good enough and that it wouldn't be good enough until Tyler could kick straight up and successfully complete the hanging leg raises.

Suddenly in the middle of Tyler's struggling to reach the desired full split, and failing, Kensei suddenly waved his hand. "Okay. That's enough for today."

"I'm done?"

"Yes. Unfortunately you didn't have as much time as we hoped for. Come here right after school and we'll continue. Today was light, but tomorrow will be double."

Tyler nodded at him. "Alright. Sounds good." He immediately went to his bag and changed into his school uniform, stuffing his Gi into the bag to replace it. Then he returned to his sifu. "So tomorrow then?" To that he got a simple nod. "Alright cool. I'll be there." He grinned before bowing respectfully to his master.

He hiked up his bag and went to the gate with the short master holding the gate open for him. It closed heavily behind him and as soon as it did a figure appeared in the corner of Tyler's eye.

"Tyler." Came Akisame's voice. Tyler turned and waved at him. "Kensei's done with you I presume?"

"Yep. He said today was _light_." He chuckled with air quotes. "I'll be reaching Chuck Norris level badassery in no time." He smirked.

"Hahaha, excellent!" He replied.

"And don't worry, I won't be causing any trouble with Kenichi."

"I know." The master nodded confidently. "You don't want to hurt people, so Sakaki and I will keep your story to ourselves. It's not our place to talk about anyway."

"Okay, sweet!" He blinked with surprise. "Thanks again for the opportunity, mister Koetsuji." He bowed politely.

"Akisame." The master corrected and returned the bow. He then turned to the gate and waved. "Until tomorrow, Tyler."

Tyler waved back and turned around, bound for his house. His legs carried him, but it felt as though they were permanently flexed with how sore they were. That place was surprisingly awesome. There were no kata exercises or useless routines to memorize. He was actually eager to learn more from them, which he was surprised after loosing all faith for dojos before.

Then again a dojo based in a school was probably not meant for much extreme levels of fighting, just basic self defense. This Ryozanpaku place felt like it was meant for high stakes fist fights, and some weapons.

His mind snapped to the two females that lived there. Everyone in school knew that Miu was a hottie. In her school uniform she was hot in a sort of kinky level, but in that leotard she wore it was twice that. Then there was the other one.

Shigure.

Hot girl who likes swords.

He smirked at himself knowing full well of how much he would be ogling those two in secret. Flirting would definitely be involved.

This new schedule was surprisingly convenient. Every day after school meant that there was very little chance for Ragnarok to jump him. Hermit had disappeared for training a while back, so he figured he would use the same excuse. Once he got back he would be ready for them, and this time he would tell them what's what.

Nobody would punish him.

* * *

 **Holy shit! I thought this chapter would only be like five thousand words at most! I was definitely shocked when I found out how long it really was.**

 **Well I hope you all appreciate it, damn.**

 **After getting this story going I came to realize something that I didn't notice before.**

 **My other story, Attack of the Creed, is awful. Plot holes, bad Characterization, the whole nine yards. Now I can excuse the main character, Taka Oyama for his lack of empathy because he's secretly a sociopath (Spoiler), but everyone else is not. So there's definitely an issue with realism and characterization there. I'm not going to be deleting it, though, simply because it's so large I'm sure someone out there will enjoy reading it.**

 **I just hope this one will be a little better.**


	9. Wake Up Call

**Chapter 9**

 **Wake Up Call**

It was day five.

Tyler tied his gi on with his whole body aching as he moved as it had been for all that week. He had been at Ryozanpaku with Master Ma every single day this week from the time school let out to about ten at night, With . He was training everything that had a muscle and then some. Every day it was the same thing, but deep down he knew that the repetition had meaning to it and the benefits would be sweet.

So for the fifth day in a row, he tied his belt on an pulled his blonde locks behind his ears before he bucked up and went out into the yard for some training.

Kenichi was crossing his path as soon as he stepped out of the main dwelling. The shorter teen looked over at him and smiled, oblivious as ever. "Oh, hey Tyler." We waved in a friendly manner.

"What's up?" He nodded at him.

"Nothing, just wondering how you were liking everything, so far?" Kenichi smiled. He couldn't help but smile, but after a few seconds of awkward silence of Tyler just looking at him the smile just looked plastered on.

The American sucked in a deep breath and looked around at the yard. The place was beautiful. The buildings, trees, equipment, hell even the people were beautiful. He couldn't lie. He hummed to himself before looking back at Kenichi with a shrug. "It's great." He replied briefly. "I've never been to a place like this before."

"Yeah, I don't think anybody has. It's kinda unique." Kenichi chuckled lightly before the awkward silence quickly fell over them again. Tyler didn't want to talk to him too much. He knew if he got too close to him then he'd end up starting even more shit with Ragnarok, but of course the kid kept talking. "So I was just wondering, um. Why?... Why train here?" Tyler simply smirked at him with a slight peer. "I don't mean to butt into your personal life, I just mean that I see you painting all the time. I honestly don't see why a guy like you would need a place like this."

Tyler gave a big shrug before shaking his head. "Same reason why a dude from the freaking gardening club goes here."

"So to protect people?" The other disciple guessed with a hopeful smile.

Tyler sucked in a breath before nodding. "Of-course" He lied with a small forced grin. "Just a skill I figured I should have."

"Yeah I know exactly what you mean and believe me, this wasn't my original plan." Kenichi chuckled as he started taking a few steps in the other direction with a wave. "Well we'd better get to it."

"You're damn right." He replied, trying not to grumble.

* * *

Tyler's shoulders ached more than the rest of his body for some reason and had him rotating each shoulder as he walking down the nearly empty hallway after school. For a whole week of training he was just waiting for that special time when his body would get used to such treatment. That point where the only pain he felt was during the actual training.

Apparently Kenichi had long since reached that point, which had him kinda jealous.

As soon as he heard the double doors shut behind him Tyler immediately reached into his pocket and plucked in his earbuds. He turned the volume all the way up to drown out all the extra noise from his peers getting picked up around him.

It was one of the first times in a while when he used the front entrance of the school, but only because it was in the direction of the dojo. He whistled to the tune of DLZ by Tv on the Radio and nodded at one of his female classmates who waved at him bashfully.

He had a bit of a walk until he got to Ryozanpaku, which he was glad about. Plenty of time to drown out his soreness with his music.

What he didn't notice were the few males trailing behind him who weren't in school uniforms of any sort. They did well at keeping their distance because Tyler would never have noticed them if not for them getting hasty once he stepped into an alley way for a short cut. By that point they all sprinted to catch up and quickly started speed walking toward him.

"Achilles!" One of them announced themselves.

Tyler didn't even hear him.

Two of the thugs shared a look and a few grins formed on their faces as they noticed his music blaring in his ear. They sped up their walking once more until they were just far enough back for him not to notice their shadows. Then the five of them drew batons and flicked them to their full length and shared a look.

With one final nod they each sprang at Tyler. The first one struck him across the back of the head, followed by a kick to the back of his knees. Before the blonde had time to fight back, all five of them surrounded him, striking him repeatedly anywhere that looked painful. His earbuds fell out and made to punch one of them, but the attackers quickly overwhelmed him and had him on his stomach covering the back of his head as he thought for the quickest way back to his feet.

Suddenly he put his feet underneath him, the rest of him still hunched over, taking heavy strikes to his head and back. He lifted his arms over his head as the strikes started landing on his ribs along with heavy kicks from steel-toed boots. He looked forward and saw one of the men standing right in front of him. He immediately made the connection in his mind and landed a punch on the man's groin before he sprung to his feet with a heavy uppercut to the man's lower jaw.

He swung both of his arms back and connected with the chests of two more of the attackers before two more baton strikes hit the back of his knees and once again sent him down to his knees. He pivoted around and blocked two more swings then once he turned around he kicked the left thug in the stomach and once he planted his foot he turned and landed a left hook to the other.

He turned again and saw one of the other thugs and jabbed his nose before grabbing him by the collar. He looked back and kicked the inside of another thug's knee before he pushed his victim forward against the wall. His fist connected with the man's face and sent the back of his head against the wall and brought him to the ground.

"Not this time, Achilles!" Shouted one of his attackers from behind him as Tyler turned around.

A baton connected with his stomach and doubled him over, only for the slippery Achilles to jab the man in the groin and tackle him to the ground. Once the man was on the ground, Tyler stood back up and kicked the downed man in the face before he turned dodged another baton, only for him to lean back into another one that connected with his head.

Tyler went down and caught himself by his hand as he guarded his dizzy head, taking blow after blow to the back from the remaining three thugs. Then suddenly he reached as quick as he could for one of the discarded batons and whacked it against one of the thugs' ankles, then another. Then he stood up and turned around, cracking it across one of their faces.

He reached to the left and stopped one of them from swinging, before he hit the man on the side of the face three times, once when the man was already down. The final thug came up from behind him, crying out with frustration, but Achilles had already turned around with his heart racing. Driven by fear and anger, Tyler charged forward and pushed the final attacker back several feet before the man went down.

Blood dripped over Tyler's right eye from his cut eyebrow as he sat on top of the man's chest, punching into the man's eyes as blood dripped from his own eyebrow into his enemy's face. His fist even started to hurt as his attacker's own cuts started to open.

Tyler eventually stopped, panting on top of the final attacker's chest as his fist bled more than his face did. Then he shot up and grabbed his fallen bag and music, and he quickly rushed out of there. He didn't even take the time to dramatically look at the scene, he left his enemy's baton on the ground and limped as fast as he could. His knees shook violently, but not even close to how violently his fists shook as he went as fast as his body would let him.

He went straight to Akisame's clinic instead of the dojo or home. He didn't want his dad or the masters to see him all bloody and bruised and at least Akisame was a doctor.

Before he went inside he stepped to the side of the door and pulled out his wallet. Stuffing all of his cash into his book bag before he went inside and limped over to the desk lady who merely glanced up at first then her jaw dropped and she shot to her feet while Tyler tried to play it off like he was perfectly fine.

"I." He panted, holding up his arm as she rushed to his side. "Is the doctor in?"

"Ssh, don't say anything! Oh my gosh!" The desk woman shrieked, taking his arm over her shoulder.

"I'm fine." He chuckled as she rushed him into a wheelchair. He didn't sit down and instead spun around and waved it off. "It's okay. I can walk."

"Yeah now you can." She replied, waving her finger at him. "But the more you stand the worse your condition will be. You're light headed, aren't you?" Tyler hesitated before giving a slight nod. "Yeah that's what I thought." The nurse nodded, pushing him back onto the chair with a flop. "You haven't lost too much blood, it seems, but I'll have to take a closer look at you."

"Seriously." He blinked back at her as she took to steering his chair down the hallway to the nearest room. "You don't need to push me. I just need to know if I have a concussion is all."

The woman opened the door in front of him before stepping around to his front with her hands on her hips. "Why? Were you in a fight?"

Tyler rolled his eyes with a sigh before he nodded and threw up his arms. "Okay, yes! I was in a fight, but I'm still standing, okay?"

"So yes, standing isn't the best thing for you right now." She explained as she wheeled him into the room and spun him around with his back to the bed.

She was being rather forceful. She didn't even take the time to ask him to lift up her shirt, she just stuck the stethoscope right in there. After taking his general vitals Akisame poked his head in the room with a knock and caused the nurse to beam and turn around immediately.

"You called? Is he bad?" The master said as soon as he entered the room.

"Yes." The woman nodded and took a step back from Tyler. "Everything seems normal, good sign there. He did mention that he felt a little light headed, could be signs of blood loss, possible head injury."

Akisame took a brief look at Tyler who awkwardly waved at him with his lips pursed. "Yeah I'd think so." Then he turned to the nurse again and nodded. "Thank you, I can take it from here."

The woman nodded and quickly left the room with the door quietly shutting behind her. Tyler shook his head with a slight grin. "She was kinda pushy." The master didn't respond and instead went over to the counter to read the nurse's notes. "Seriously I walked all the way over here. I feel fine." Still nothing and the only response the doctor gave was a silent turn of the page. "I've taken hits like this before."

"All I want to know is if this is going to be a reoccurring event." Akisame replied without looking back at him. "You coming to train already covered in blood and bruises."

"Maybe." He shrugged, letting himself lean back in the wheelchair.

"Were these the same people as when we met?"

"No." He replied, wiping some blood from the tip of his nose. "These were just some cheap punks. Nothing special, they just caught me with my music playing."

"So a sneak attack then?" He nodded as he pulled a chair beside him and brushed some of Tyler's blonde hair from his face to see the bruises. "It certainly did the trick. Does that hurt?" He asked pushing down on his bruised temple.

"Gah! Yes!" He snapped, slapping the master's hand away.

"There's a lot of swelling already, but you were able to walk over here just fine." Akisame nodded with a calm smile. "No concussion at least. I'd say drink a lot of water and take it easy for today. You should be okay to train again tomorrow."

"No. I'll go today." Tyler argued, waving his hand. Akisame frowned with confusion as the new disciple leaned forward in his chair. "Look, I know this looks bad and all, but this is exactly why I came to train at your dojo." He explained. "So I'm training as much as a can as long as I can stand."

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Yes, plus," He sat up in the chair. "I'll be training in this state would be harder." The master nodded at that. "So that means the results will be greater, right?"

"Um. Maybe." Akisame nodded and stood up. "It'll definitely help your endurance. If you want to train today, then I don't have a problem with it. Just know your limits, okay?"

"Definitely." Tyler nodded as he stood up from the wheelchair.

"Alright well let's get Kensei up here so he can treat those cuts." He nodded, poking Tyler's forhead as he stood up from his chair. The suddenly stopped and grabbed a little foam cup from the wall and filled it with water, handing it to his new disciple. "Just keep drinking that and filling it back up, you've probably lost more fluids than you'll need to train."

"Yeah I wouldn't doubt it." He sighed, taking a sip of the cup as the jujitsu master left him alone in the room.

The blonde turned back the little cup of water with one big gulp before he went to the sink for more. He started sipping his cup, bobbing his head in the awkward silence before his eyes locked on the mirror right above the sink. He was seeing himself for the first time since the attack. There was a small gash above his left eyebrow, a bruise covering his entire right cheek, and blood all over his forehead.

He really hadn't seen what those thugs left him looking like until now and the sight made him speechless. His jaw hung open as he leaned forward and looked closer at himself. He reached his hand up and felt the back of his head where he took several blows, only to cringe upon contact with the now highly sensitive area.

This was what they did to him. All for breaking the rules. This was how they held their order.

"I really hope you've been hydrating, Ty." Kensei said as he swiftly entered the room, carrying bandages and a small tub of ointment with Chinese characters on them.

"Uh." He looked at his cup which was still filled and started drinking it again. "Yep."

"Good boy. Now sit over here for me if you please." The master motioned to the doctor's bed and Tyler quickly obeyed as the short man uncapped the tub and took a small dab of it on his finger, rubbing it into Tyler's open gash on his forehead. "So how are you feeling?"

"Uh." He blinked and shook his head. "Still a bit light headed, but I'm feeling better."

"Good." Kensei nodded, getting more of the ointment. "I was hoping you weren't foolishly pushing yourself out of anger. Then again you did win, so I suppose it could've gone worse."

"Yeah no shit." He chuckled and rubbed his eyes. "It doesn't feel like I won. I still got my skull beaten with sticks."

"Well all the more reason to keep training, right?"

Tyler looked at him with an open mouth stare as he slowly nodded. "Oh yeah. Definitely."

"Just remember not to go looking for trouble." Kensei said as he wiped some of the excess ointment from Tyler's head. "That's how a victim becomes the bad guy."

"Trust me, being the good guy is the last thing I'm worried about." He chuckled as Kensei placed a bandage over his gash.

"Suit yourself. It'd probably behoove you to take it easy for a few days. If you go looking for trouble you can make your injuries worse." The chinese master nodded as he backed away from his disciple. "There, now you just need to keep that head on ice for a bit and let it heal. Why don't you sleep over at the dojo tonight?"

"You sure that's okay?" He replied as he was handed a blue ice pack and he lifted it up to the top of his head.

"Oh yes, yes. Of course." Kensei waved it off as he and Tyler left the room and started down the hallway. "Our Kenichi is already staying with us permanently to get more time to train, and who knows. Maybe some day you'll be allowed to do this."

* * *

Training that day was the same as ever, only he had to worry about his aching head the whole time. However, it eventually got to the point where he hardly noticed it and he got distracted by the burning sensation that his Sifu's trading left him with.

He still had yet to actually learn any moves which before he didn't quite mind, but right about now he really wishes he had been learning at least something. It wasn't like he wasn't going to get attacked again since he successfully fended off the last guys that were sent for him.

It wasn't until late that night when he was in the middle of hanging leg raises that he brought it up. "Sifu." He strained as he brought his legs straight out to waist level.

"Higher, Ty." The master stayed without looking up from the pink magazine in front of his face which Tyler only guessed to be porn.

"Yes Sifu." He said through his groans. "Um sifu I know all these exercises are meant to make me stronger but have you by any chances planned when I'm gonna be practicing any moves yet?"

"You want to start technique training already?" Kensei peeked over the top of his magazine at the blonde make. "You're hardly ready for that, Try. You probably wouldn't survive."

"Heh, sure." He grinned as he forced his legs up higher. "It's just that I don't know when I'll be attacked next so maybe it would be good for me to be more ready. You know?"

"Oh I don't know if you're ready, Ty." Kensei grinned from behind his magazine. "Considering who you're affiliated with, I don't think teaching you to fight better would be a good idea for me. You may abuse it."

"Abuse it?!" He grunted and paused for a moment before the master waved his hand and Tyler continued with his exercise. "Those guys attacked me. What makes you think I'd ever agree to be their bitch again? Never gonna happen, but I'm no where near strong enough to stand up to them for very long."

"Well that's why you're here." The master smirked at him before he waved his hand and the disciple dropped from the bar. Kensei then pointed across the yard at Kenichi who was currently working with Apachai on the punching pads, before getting kicked into oblivion across the yard. "Look at Kenichi over there."

"Again?! Holy fuck!" The blonde shouted with wide eyes.

Kensei stopped him before he could rush over to help him. "He'll pull through as always, but listen. Kenichi started off as one of the weakest young people I've ever seen, but once he started training here he gained a determination unlike anything I see from kids nowadays. Now he's much stronger thanks to his determination, and he never once thought about taking his knowledge and going out to look for trouble."

"Yeah well I'm a little more trapped than he is, alright?" Tyler waved it off and folded his arms.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm saying that if I stick with them they'll force me to do something I don't want to do. And since that won't fly with me I'll get my ass kicked." He explained. "But if I quit now to avoid it, then they'll still come for me. It's a trap, so I need to be ready enough to make that choice."

"What would that choice be, exactly?"

Tyler threw up his hand and shook his head. "I don't know. I guess I'd have to fight them off until they leave me alone."

"And once they have, then what? They'd still be out there, stupid boy." Kensei shook his finger. "Still doing those things that you would never condescend to do yourself. Nothing will have changed after that."

The American looked at him and stared off into space as he quickly realized that Ma Sifu was right. Quitting would stop it for him, but they wouldn't ever stop just because one of their members left.

"Then I guess I wouldn't quit." He nodded at his master who simply raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I'd train to be a better fighter, but I won't quit the gang. I'll be the voice of reason as I should be, because apparently nobody else will." He shrugged.

"Now that." The master smiled and tipped his hat at him. "Makes a hell of a lot of sense to me."

Tyler smirked at him and nodded. "Ya think so?"

Kensei nodded before looking across the yard at Miu trying to wake Kenichi up with a bucket of water only to have the other disciple jolt awake and knock the entire bucket all over her.

The master waved his hand at Tyler. "If you'll excuse me." He said before he disappeared and reappeared by Miu, snapping pictures as fast as his finger would let him while dodging the girl's embarrassed attacks.

The American smirked and stepped up to Sakaki's side while he to smiled and watched with amusement. "Jeez." Tyler chuckled as Miu threw the bucket at the chinese master and chased him away. "He's like me, but with more balls."

Sakaki belted out laughing at that one and clapped him on the shoulder. "Yep, that's a regular thing around here. You'll see a lot more of that."

"Yeah I bet." He smirked as Miu chased Kensei back around in front of the others.

The man held his hand down as Miu swatted at him with a broom, then he looked over at Tyler. "Well I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment, Ty. But tomorrow we'll start your Technique training! Have a good rest of the night!"

"Shit, a break and technique training, sweet deal."

Sakaki laughed again and squeezed his shoulder, Tyler looked back to see a sinister smile on his face. "Not so fast kid, it's still about half an hour till dinner time. Plenty of time to teach you a thing or two."

Tyler immediately gulped as the Karate teacher pulled him away from Kenichi's recovery and before long the master had Tyler working on brand new knowledge that Tyler was both parts excited and terrified to learn.

* * *

 **Alright finally got another chapter done. Hope you like it.**

 **One more thing I should probably add. Tyler is the hero of the story, yes. He is a stoner and smokes a shit ton of weed, yes. He enjoys it a lot, yes. But do not take this as inspiration to start smoking pot yourself. I mean for fucks sake he's a story character. For real though I just don't wanna get blamed for somebody starting that. That's all I honestly give a shit about, I won't lie to you. I've even done it myself. It was a raging good time.**

 **But then again I don't really expect any of my readers to be stupid enough to be influenced by my story so much that it makes them start smoking pot like Tyler. Oh and if you do get influenced by the story like that, then, well, you're stupid, congratulations.**

 **For real though, don't get me in trouble.**

 **Thanks a bunch. ;)**


	10. Carry On, Valkyrie

**Chapter 10**

 **Carry On, Valkyri** e

The remaining seven deadly fists gathered around each other in their warehouse hide out. With Seigfried, Thor, and Hermit gone the place was much quieter and a lot more tense than usual. The desperation to deep with the Shinpaku alliance was finally starting to set in.

"So," Odin began, an angry undertone evident in his voice. He looked to his side at Berserker. "Have we come to a decision yet?"

Berserker and Freya exchanged looks before they both nodded. "As much as I would enjoy dealing with the situation myself." Freya began. "I believe the Shinpaku alliance needs to be scared into submission."

Loki snickered from behind them. "There's nobody better at that than Berserker, eh buddy?"

He nudged the second fist who merely ignored him without reaction.

Odin nodded and looked to his second. "So you will lead a full on attack on the Shimpaku Alliance then?"

"I'll do it myself." Berserker replied briefly. "No chumps to babysit."

The first fist nodded with satisfaction. "I wouldn't have it any other way. Then its-"

Odin paused for a moment as a figure below them caught his attention. The other fists stared at him in confusion as he just stared at him.

"What is it?" Valkyrie frowned at him with anticipation.

The other fists suddenly looked in the direction Odin was and standing below them surrounded by a rough looking squad of Ragnarok thugs was Achilles clad only in a T-shirt and jeans with a plaid over shirt, his face fully exposed now.

"Achilles?" Odin peered down at him in confusion.

"You have some nerve boyo!" Loki chuckled in a condescending manner.

Kisara breathed out. "Idiot."

"Indeed." the first fist nodded, glaring at him in a challenging manner. "I thought we made our point clear that you were to be punished.

Tyler rubbed the back of his head, not at all intimidated by the first fists threatening gaze. "Yeah... Yeah you did." he began to pace in front them.

The thugs ran up to his side and attempted to grab him. "We're sorry, sir. We'll get rid of him for you." but Achilles was too elusive.

"You guys," he pointed up at him. "Never gave me a chance to plea my case. I believe I was justified in my actions."

"Let him continue. " Odin waved it off.

"You see, our vision is to gain as much strength as possible, right?" he asked pacing back and forth.

Odin nodded. "Yes, of course."

"Then why are we focusing on one guy who simply wants to be left alone?" Tyler asked and threw his hands up. His eyes drifted to Loki and peered at him. "Why kidnap people like we're soldiers at war? Don't you think we should handle this in a more constructive manner?"

Loki snickered and shook his head, but Odin simply nodded and sat back in his chair. "You do have a point, Tyler. But you still haven't pleaded your case."

"Loki." he folded his arms and peered at him. "You took it too far. You were going to kill that little girl. So I acted. Somebody needed to slap you back into your senses."

The fourth fist gritted his teeth and wanted to make an argument, but he held himself back once he found his leader's eyes on him.

"Loki." Odin persisted. "This isn't untrue. Perhaps Achilles was right." Loki growled under his breath with furious anger. The first fist looked down to Achilles. "You should have brought the issue to us. Handled it more diplomatically."

Tyler nodded at that. "For enough."

Loki shook his head, furious that he was being forgiven. The one person who would get in the way of their plans. This would seriously complicate things and needed to be dealt with.

"Come, Achilles." Odin motioned, "Join us."

"Of course." he replied with a nod, but then he paused and held up a finger. "But first I do have some unfinished business to handle."

He turned around and faced the group of thugs who chased him in here. The same group who had ambushed him one month before that.

One of them scoffed at him. "What?" he grinned. "Round two?"

Tyler merely pursed his lips and shook his head. Then, he approached them with a confident grin. "I need you boys to apologize for your behavior last month."

The same thug merely snickered to the others and shook his head. "You've gotta be kidding me."

The ninth fist merely looked at him with no expression, then in a split second he elbowed him across the jaw and knocked him out cold.

He turned to the next guy, amused and grinned in his face. "You think I'm kidding?"

The remaining thugs looked down at their fallen comrade then back to Achilles, who clearly gained new found strength in the short time since they fought.

Intimidated by his abilities the thugs backed down and nodded. One by one they each said, "I'm sorry," before picking up their unconscious friend and leaving the room.

Valkyrie and Freya cracked a smile at the exchange, but Odin remained stern as ever. "Okay, Achilles, you've had your fun. Now please, join us." he offered up a chair next to Valkyrie. The ninth fist marched up the stairs and joined them as they gathered around a table. Tyler quickly noted that Thor, Hermit, and Seigfried were all gone.

Perhaps Kenichi got the other two to quit somehow.

"We were just discussing our next course of action." The first fist explained as Achilles joined them. "Berserker has offered to deal with Kenichi Shirahama himself."

Tyler let out a slight chuckled and hung his head. "That's it?" he said under his breath.

"Do you have a better suggestion?" Freya asked, peering at him.

"Look," he began. "I get why we're still on this, I do. He has made us look like fools, but-" he let out a sigh. "We brought this on ourselves."

"You sound like you're on his side." Loki peered at him, happily planting seeds of doubt.

"I didn't say that." The blonde argued and pointed at Loki. He laid back in his chair and felt the weight of all of their eyes on him. "I mean, I go to school with the kid. Over hear him talking all the time."

Odin raised a brow with curiosity. "And... What does he say?"

"He wants out of all of this." Tyler chuckled. He would have said anything to get Kenichi out of this. To get himself out of fighting against him. "Honestly, the kid is a marshmallow. He doesn't have a vendetta against us. He's just well trained and scared." Valkyrie was the only one who nodded. "And we keep setting ourselves up for failure."

"No way, I've seen him in a fight." Valkyrie shook her head. "He's no coward."

"No. He isn't." he agreed with a nod, "But he does want to be left alone. Maybe there is another way to punish him."

Odin adjusted his glasses in agreement. "You do make a strong case." Tyler could see Bersekrer eyeballing him from across the table. Then the first fist looked to Loki, their tactician. "What do you think?"

Loki snickered and shook his head. "I say we gang up on him and be done with it once and for all."

"Even if we do beat him, he'll just come back." Tyler argued, trying his best to be reasonable with Loki. "He did when Tsuji beat him and he only came back stronger. What we need is to make him feel like he won the battle but lost the war."

Freya peered at him. "Break his spirit."

"Since his body won't give." Tyler nodded, though he questioned weather or not this was better or worse than fighting him.

"Loki." Odin spoke up. "Any suggestions?"

The fourth fist shook his head with bitterness, but begrudgingly replied. "Probably..." he hummed, deep in thought then shrugged. "Send Berserker to attack the Shinpaku instead of Shirahama. Tell him to give up martial arts or it will happen again."

Tyler didn't say anything; he didn't want to break character. He couldn't be discovered training with the enemy, let alone being friends. Kenichi was a good guy, though. He was a good martial artist, but he didnt fight for fun or power like Ragnarok did.

"Is that okay with you, Achilles?" Loki smirked at him, further curious of Achilles true feeling. "Or does that seem too harsh?"

The ninth fist merely flipped him off. "Bitch-"

"That's enough, gentlemen!" Odin spoke up and adjusted his glasses. "Achilles, I understand how you feel about our goals as of late, but we have been the laughing stock and somebody needs to be punished. If we lose respect, we lose power. You could understand that, right?"

Tyler merely shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah."

"Good, then we will go along with Loki's plan." Odin nodded with assurance. "Berserker will stalk the Shinpaku alliance and attack them when he sees fit. I trust this problem will finally be settled."

The other fists nodded in agreement and that was it. Tyler bad fought for Kenichi's safety, but it wasn't good enough. His comrades were obsessed with this war with Kenichi and the Shinpaku. Deep down he knew how Kenichi felt. Though, he had always enjoyed fighting purely as a pastime, he understood his fellow disciple's philosophy on fighting. It was the same moral code that Akisame tried to drill into his head whenever Tyler trained with him. However he always did identify better with master Sakaki during Karate training, or even Apachai during Muay Thai. Kensei had always been a mystery, and he never could figure out Shigure. Whenever she trained him it was purely performance, nothing to do with beliefs or morals.

Kenichi was a good guy. Even though they barely spent time together outside of the dojo the guy was nice to him, even gave him advice when training from time to time. Tyler could admit that he was growing on him.

He was just walking out the door when Kisara caught up to him. He was half expecting an insult from her.

"You're right, you know." she said rubbing the back of her head. He merely raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "The gang is... Different. We used to have honor. Now our need to test ourselves against strong fighters is unhealthy."

"It would be different if we weren't looking at it like a war." he shrugged and looked over his shoulder to check for any others. "Kidnapping is when we took it too far."

He turned to walk away, but she followed as the crossed over a bridge. "Why did you come back?" she asked insistently. Tyler gave a simply shrug, the wind flapping his hair everywhere. "You were out, you could have helped the kid better that way."

Tyler gave a sideways grin and shook his head in denial. "What makes you think I want to help him?"

"Before you couldn't wait to fight him." Kisara argued as they took a left down the alley towards the shopping center. "Now you're defending him."

"Well I guess kidnapping his baby sister gave me a whole new perspective." he sighed as they left the alley into a more populated area, lit up as the sun started to go down. "I can't help but feel like an ass now that I see the damage that we can do."

Valkyrie didn't respond, and instead looked off for a moment. Tyler could tell she was seriously considering what he had said. Then out of nowhere she took off running towards a corner store across the lot.

He marched after her once she stopped in front of a cardboard box and knelt down. He caught up and looked inside the box to see a little orange kitten.

"Really?" he snickered, thinking nostalgically of Miu and her obsession with cats.

"Poor little guy." she grumbled under her breath. "Did somebody just kick you to the curb."

"Take it home." the ninth fist threw his arm into the air while his comrade coddled the kitten.

Kisara let out a heavy, depressed sigh and shook her head. "My building doesn't allow pets."

He shook his head, "Well..." he said as he paced with reluctance. "I suppose I can take it home. I mean the old man has never been very nurturing, but he won't mind."

"You'd do that?" she looked up at him.

He nodded, "Sure it's no problem. I'm sure my dad is a bit lonely lately. I wouldn't be surprised to find a hooker at home with him." he looked off.

Kisara rolled her eyes. "Nice. He sounds like a great caregiver for a kitten."

Tyler threw his hands up, not completely disagreeing with her sarcasm. "Hey he's a war vet. He has right to be an Ole grouch."

"Hmm." she stroked the cat's ear as it purred at her and cuddled deeper into her lap. "She reminds me of my old cat, Noir. Well I guess every cat does... She died when I was little."

The ninth fist looked to Valkyrie as she shook her head with sorrow. "I'm sorry."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of thunder in the distance. Tyler looked warily toward the dark cloud just south of them and shook his head.

"If we're doing this, we should get going, now." he said as he started out of the alleyway. "I'll run in and grab us an umbrella and some cat food. Then we'll head over to my place."

He didn't even give her a chance to argue with him before he rushed into the store and they started back towards Tyler's place. Kisarw clung strangely to the little kitten, which was a little out of character for her. The girl with insults for days, who was usually quick to go feminist on you if you disrespected her turned out to have a softer.

Tyler couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. "You know. You're pretty unspoken about some of the stuff we've done."

The eighth fist glared at him through the corner of her eyes. "Please, just don't."

He nodded. "I was just saying you seem like a better person than that. You should express your opinion more. We need more people like that who stand up for what they believe in."

He didn't really expect Valkyrie to listen that much. After all she lead her own gang, he had no idea why she even joined Ragnarok in the first place. However, the way she coddled that kitten said it all. She was no bully at heart. She was simply in too deep like he was.

Life was strenuous in Ragnarok again. He was no longer the champion who fought for fun. Now he was used for intimidation. If businesses refused to pay their "taxes" to the gang he was sent to wreck the place and collect the money.

He had done it before and what he made from it felt like dirty money now, he never touched it.

At Ryozanpaku his training got more intense. Sakaki's karate training numbed his fists until he couldn't feel how hard he punched anymore. Kensei made him more agile and balanced than he believed he could be in such a short amount of time. Shigure, although he refused to use blades, made sure he could defend against them, and be even more devastating using any other weapon. Apachai was so ruthless in his sparring sessions that any normal attack looked like slow motion. As for Akisame, the man took a keen interest on him outside the training. Some days rather than train they would go grocery shopping or visit the clinic for a while. They always seemed to get into the deepest of conversations, though it may have been the marijuana talking for Tyler.

Each day as he got stronger, his job as one of the nine fists became easier. Though he couldn't shake the feeling that he was abusing his power. After being on the other side of Ragnarok's radar, he could understand why Kenichi always used to run.

He wasn't sure what to do. He spared Kenichi the pain, but only brought it upon the Shinpaku alliance. Then finally one day as he was walking down the halls he passed by the science lab Shinpaku headquarters and overheard the members excitedly chatting.

"A party?" Ukita the thrower gasped to Takeda the puncher. "Where at?"

"Kisara Nanjo's place." the boxer said kicking his feet onto the table. "Apparently she quit Ragnarok, offered up her allegiance. Everybody is going."

Tyler poked his head in the door, eyes wide with concern. "Just like that?" Ukita replied.

"All she said was it was the right thing to do." Takeda laughed and nudged him. Tyler's heart sank as he realised he was the one who put those thoughts in her head. "I'm just happy we have some new members. Valkyrie's no joke."

"Yeah you're telling me."

Finally Tyler barged in the room. "Don't go." He spoke up. The two of them stared at them strangely in confusion. "You guys are being watched by a powerful fighter. Much stronger than you. He plans to take care of you all at once."

The two of them stood up from their chairs in fear. "Who? Odin? Loki?"

"Berserker." Tyler replied in haste. "You have to warn the others, come up with a plan. This guy will run right through you, trust me."

Tadeka gave him a puzzled look, "how do you-" but the blonde was already out the door as he ran through the halls and waited outside Valkyrie's classroom.

Once the bell rang she soon walked out and spotted him, waving. "Winters, hey!"

He suddenly grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside behind the gym. "Come here!"

"Let me go!" she said as she jerked her arm free and got into her fighting stance. "So this is how you guys planned on doing it?"

"What were you thinking?" he hissed, tapping her on the head. "Do you realise how fucked you are?!"

"I think we'll do fine." she folded her arms. "I think Ragnarok is going to fall."

"They will kill you!" he argued, getting a little too close for comfort. "You know how powerful those three are, not to mention their sheer numbers and resources."

"I know. Believe me, I know." she explained. "You said it yourself I should do the right thing. Speak my mind, so I'm doing it. Why won't you?"

Tyler shook his head and took a step back, letting the guilt set in. "I'm trying not to get anybody hurt. Y'all, them, me, Kenichi, my father. I don't want any more blood on my hands."

"Well you're gonna have to, okay?" she argued and shoved him. "You know your dad was the one who convinced me to leave?" his eyes widened and he looked at her in shock. "He said sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy, but its worth it in the end." Tyler shook his head and backed away. Valkyrie grabbed his hand and pulled him closer. "Come on, you're probably the only decent person still there. I don't want to fight you, but I will if I have to."

Achilles jerked his hand away and they exchanged unrelenting gazes. He sighed and shookhis head at her.

"Okay, look." he began. "If I hear anything about their plans for you I'll give you a heads up if it doesn't compromise me, but that's all. Now get out of here before we're seen talking."

Valkyrie nodded with a light sigh. "Right." She took a step towards him, almost as if to hug him but spun around and speed walked in the other direction out of embarrassment.

Tyler shook his head with a sideways smirk before continuing on his way. "Nice one, Casanova."

From way across the yard on the other side of the fence, a spectator huffed in outrage. A black haired girl with a team of identically dressed girls in white jumpsuits and skirts gathered around each other while the black haired one dialed on her phone.

"Freya. We have a problem."


End file.
